


UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



REVIEW 



OF 



E. F. HATFIELD'S 



I i 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT 



feY T. J. SAWYER. 



NEW-YORK: 
P. PRICE, 130 FULTON STREET 



1341, 



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*/f Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year 1841, 

* * By P. PRICE, 

^ in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District 
fe * of New-York. 



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TO HIS FRIEND AND BROTHER IN THE GOSPEL, 

REV. S. R. SMITH, 

is this little volume respectfully inscribed, as a token of long- 
cherished esteem and affection, by 

THE AUTHOR. 



EPISTLE PREFATORY. 



To Rev. Edwin F. Hatfield : 

Dear Sir— I can not allow the following Review of your " Univer- 
salisra as it is" to go forth in its present form, without availing my- 
self of the opportunity it offers me, to say a few words to you per- 
sonally. 

And first, let me thank you, in the name of the Universalist denom- 
ination, for your " Text Book"; for although you can not but know 
that it is far from being what it professes ; although it contains very 
many things which are altogether incorrect, and are adapted, how- 
ever they may have been designed, to give a false impression respect- 
ing both our faith and character ; yet we are permitted to say to you 
as Joseph said to his brethren in Egypt, " You meant it for evil, but 
God meant it for good." Your brethren, who read your work, can 
not but greatly suspect its truth and fairness ; at least, none can fail 
of doing so, except that portion of you-r readers, who yielded an im- 
plicit credence, a few years ago, to that disgusting humbug, the "Aw- 
ful Disclosures !" Such persons, it is to be hoped, will never be 
damned for their " little faith." All others, who peruse " Univer- 
salism as it is," will be led by it to think more favorably of a cause 
which can be assailed, with any hope of success, only by such means 
and in such an unchristian spirit, as are exhibited in the work before 
me. Besides, you have made many references to Universalist authors, 
and thus given your readers a knowledge of several works of 
which they have hitherto been profoundly ignorant. Some of them, 
I know, are disposed to read for themselves rather than to rely im- 
plicitly on your representations. The result you can foresee without 
a spirit of prophecy. I regret, therefore, to learn that your volume 
meets with so slow a sale, and threatens to burden the shelves of your 
publisher for a long time to come. It does not speak well for the zeal, 
intelligence, or taste of your brethren in the faith. 

In the next place, I must thank you for myself; for the insight you 



Vi EPISTLE PREFATORY. 

have given me into your real character and spirit. I often ask my- 
self whether the man who wrote "Universalism as it is," is the quiet, 
kind-hearted and friendly class-mate of my earlier days; and 1 can 
not but inquire what it is that has wrought such a mighty change. Is 
it the work of religion? Then, the less of such religion the world 
has, the better. — But at the same time, I must thank you for the trial 
you have given to my christian graces. To confess the truth, there 
were scarcely ever so heavy drafts made upon my charity by any 
other person. How I have answered them, must be left for others to 
judge. Some of my friends, however, think I have, in several in- 
stances, been rather severe. I confess that I have used " great plain- 
ness of speech " The case seemed to me to demand it, and I have 
sometimes " rebuked sharply." But if I have spoken unadvisedly 
with my lips, I sincerely regret it, and beg your pardon. Your con- 
science will tell you that the truth was bad enough. 

For my Review I make no apology, as I ask for it no indulgence. 
I do not flatter myself that you will deem it worthy of any public 
notice from yourself, or your friends, but should it fortunately come to 
such an honor, I shall read what you have to say upon it, with great 
care, and, I trust, candor. 

In conclusion let me say, that although I entertain a very humble 
opinion of your creed, and its moral influences, both on yourself and 
your sect, I shall still be happy to see you, and will endeavor to con- 
vince you that there is a religion, which, without the fear of endless 
torments, teaches man to love his enemies. 

May it please God to lead you to a more perfect knowledge of the 
truth as it is in Jesus, and make you both a better and happier man. 
lam your sincere friend and well wisher, 

T. J. Sawyer. 



INDEX.* 



Page. 

General character of " Universalism as it is," 5 

What Universalism was and is, 37 

Final happiness of all mankind, 58 

Penalty of Sin, 71 

Denial of Native Depravity, 92 

Origin of Sin, 98 

No punishment after death, 104 

Sin ceases at death, 108 

Mankind naturally mortal, 109 

Man has no immortal soul, 113 

No escape from punishment, 127 

Suicide no crime, 136 

Sin its own punishment, 140 

No such thing as punishment, 154 

Denial of the Atonement, 165 

Sufferings of Christ not peculiar, 173 

Denial of the Trinity, 195 

"God's favor n«ver lost, 205 

This life not probationary to another, and, Faith not 

necessary to future happiness, 221 

The New Birth, 247 



* This Index, for the most part, merely refers the reader to the 
page where the subject indicated in Mr. Hatfield's chapter is treated. 



Vlll INDEX. 

The Resurrection-State, 252 

The Day of Judgment, 264 

Devil and his Angels, 271 

Christians have no ordinances, 277 

Fruits of Universalism, 283 

Learning of Universalist ministers, 297 

Conclusion) 314 



It is perhaps due to Rev. J. M. Austin, to say that he strongly ex- 
cepts to the remarks made upon his views of the origin of sin, p. 100. 
Though not satisfied that injustice is there done him, he is still enti- 
tled to a demurrer. See Universalist Union June 5, and August 7 
and 14, 1841. 

Several errors of the press have been observed, but they are gen- 
erally of such a character as to be easily corrected by the reader* 



REVIEW. 



There are two questions which naturally 
arise in every thoughtful mind on the perusal 
of any book, and more especially of a theologi- 
cal book, whose subject gives it importance or 
invests it with interest : 1. What was the au- 
thor's design ? 2. How has he accomplished it ? 

These questions have urged themselves 
strongly upon our attention in the examination 
of the work which we propose to review in 
these pages. It is a work of confessedly an 
uncommon character ; nay, it is unique in the 
history of the controversy with which it stands 
connected. It comes before the public with 
rather imposing pretensions, and is hailed with 
feelings of apparent triumph, and commended 
with great cordiality by a portion of the reli- 
gious press. Its subject, besides, seems to us, 
as well as to its author, to be important to all, 
and we cannot doubt, therefore, that such as 
wish to make themselves acquainted with the 
true facts in the case, will feel gratified in being 
enabled to see the views not only of our author, 

1 



6 review of hatfield's 

but also of those who chance to differ from 
him. 

The design of our author, in the work before 
us, would seem to be clearly enough indicated 
in its title-page. It was to present the commu- 
nity with a picture of Universalism as it is ; to 
make the public acquainted with the faith and 
opinions of Universalists, and to expose the 
fallacious and dangerous errors which lurk in 
its pretensions, or stand out boldly on its front. 
In such an undertaking, our author seems to 
have been subjected to great labor, and has 
found the prosecution of his work attended by 
circumstances peculiarly " unpleasant, and oft- 
entimes heart-sickening." His task, too, has 
been performed " in the midst of other very nu- 
merous and arduous avocations ;" but he has 
been urged forward by " a thorough conviction 
of the dreadful delusions of this vaunted creed, 
and a most ardent desire to do something to 
open the eyes of the community to the fallacy 
of this system, and the danger of listening to 
ks syren songs." And now the work is com- 
pleted, he expresses the hope that it " will be 
of service not only to the community at large, 
but to theological students,, and [his] brethren 
in the ministry." 

The considerations, which gave our author 
resolution to go through, with a work whose 
preparation seems to have cost him such a sa- 



UNIVERSALIS*! AS IT IS. 7 

crifice of feeling, and to have broken in so seri- 
ously upon his other very numerous and ardu- 
ous duties, may be still more clearly inferred 
from his preface. There was. as would be ex- 
pected from a zealous Presbyterian, the as- 
sumption that Universalism is a most insinua- 
ting, dangerous and fatal error. But this alone 
would scarcely justify the production of such a 
volume as this, unless it were believed that this 
error is somewhat prevalent, and also rather 
prosperous withal. It is not in the nature of 
things, that a wise man should make war upon 
a cause which possesses little of the energy of 
life, and which is of itself faltering and dying 
away. But have we not heard, from the most 
respectable sources, again and again, that Uni- 
versalism is on the decline ? Nay, were not 
our citizens and the whole community informed, 
scarcely six months ago, by the New York Evan- 
gelist^ of which our author is an editor, that 
Universalism was prostrated in this city] And 
has not that journal given repeated notices of 
the " waning" of our cause in very many places % 
Why, then, we ask, is this gigantic effort made, 
in the midst of such numerous and arduous 
other duties ; and in the making of which, aur 
sensitive author was forced to wade through so 
much that was " unpleasant and heart-sicken- 
ing r 

To speak the truth, these popular represenla- 



8 review of Hatfield's 

tions of the orthodox journals setting forth the 
rapid decline of Universalism and its utter 
prostration in some of its important places, have 
been the fruit of criminal ignorance, or of a 
most melancholy perversion of known facts. 
And this our author is compelled virtually to 
acknowledge ! He throws aside at once the 
whole tissue of misrepresentation by which the 
mass of his brethren have been misled, and 
frankly confesses that Universalism is no longer 
to be trifled with. While the orthodox journals 
have been perpetually crying " Peace, peace, '? 
and persuading their unobservant and credulous 
readers that Universalism was declining, the 
denomination and its faith have been rapidly 
spreading through the country, until now it 
stands, for numbers, activity and influence, the 
fourth or fifth denomination in the United 
States ! ! To show this, our author quotes from 
the Universalist Register and Companion for 
1840, the summary of the statistics of the de- 
nomination for that year, as follows : 

" There are in the United States alone, 1 
General Convention, 12 State Conventions, 56 
Associations, about 853 Societies, 512 Preach- 
ers, and 513 Meeting-houses, owned wholly or 
in part by Universalists. In addition to those 
in the United States, there are about 15 Socie- 
ties, 7 preachers, and 3 or 4 Meeting-houses 
in the British provinces. ,, He also adds, from 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 9 

the same source, that " during the past year, no 
less than 59 new laborers have entered into their 
field of labor, of whom nine are converts from 
the partialist ministry ; while hundreds, yea, 
thousands, if not tens of thousands of the par- 
tialist laity have embraced and avowed the faith 
of Universalism, during the past year." 

After these quotations the author goes on to 
say, Pref. p. iv. 

" It is, doubtless, the case, that this estimate 
makes but little allowance for societies that 
have ceased to be, and are among things that 
were. Yet, with every deduction that can be 
made, and that truth demands, it is still quite 
apparent, that hundreds of enterprizing preach- 
ers, and a score of editors are constantly en- 
gaged in disseminating from the pulpit, through 
the press, and by every means in their power, 
their peculiar tenets throughout these United 
States. Every opportunity is watched and care- 
fully improved to bring themselves into notice. 
If a paragraph appears in any periodical, re- 
flecting in the least degree, on them or their 
doctrines, it is made the basis of a labored and 
spirited defence. If a sermon is preached in 
defence of the strict eternity of future punish- 
ment, it is made the occasion of a course of es- 
says or sermons, in reply. In every possible 
way discussion is provoked, and the people 
called out to hear their claims." 

I* 



10 REVIEW OF HATFIELD'S 

It is unnecessary for us to endorse this state- 
ment of our author for the benefit of our Uni- 
versalist readers ; they know its substantial 
truth already, and have known it long ; but 
could our voice be heard, and our words believ- 
ed by our orthodox editors and people, we 
would suggest, that whether it be lawful to lie 
for the glory of God or not, experience has fully 
demonstrated in the case before us, that false 
representations do not alter facts, and that Uni- 
versalism is none the less prevalent or prosper- 
ous, because they say, on the one hand, or be- 
lieve, on the other, that it is prostrated or de- 
clining. 

But this is not all : Universalism is not only 
a most insinuating and fatal heresy, and also 
wide spread, and zealously and perseveringly 
advocated and defended, but what renders the 
case still more alarming, is the fact, just disco- 
vered by our author, that " orthodox preachers," 
—almost the sole guardians and conservators 
of religious truth and public morals — are, in 
general, profoundly ignorant or strangely mis- 
led, with respect to its true character, and have, 
therefore, for more than forty years, been 
n beating the air." or contending with a phan- 
tom of their own brain, which no one advocates 
or believes ! This, it must be confessed, is one 
of the most remarkable facts that our author 
has presented. 



UNIVERSALIS*! AS IT IS. 11 

It is true, that Universalists have very often 
had occasion to remark, that those who volun- 
teered to assail them, were sadly ignorant of 
the doctrines which they undertook to refute, 
and were like some mentioned by an apostle, 
" understanding neither what they say, nor 
whereof they affirm. " But it was hardly to be 
expected that this would be so frankly and fully 
confessed by our author. And yet he has quo- 
ted from some writer in one of our periodicals 
a paragraph setting forth this truth very clear- 
ly, and has himself borne testimony to its sub- 
stantial verity. M It is well to learn, even from 
an enemy/' says a Latin proverb, and we hope 
our author may yet learn still more, from the 
same source. But we must quote our author's 
own words on this subject. In his preface, p. v. 
he says : 

11 It is by no means uncommon for a Univer- 
salist preacher to accuse and convict one, whom 
he regards and treats as an opponent, of being 
but little acquainted with the peculiarities of 
the doctrine against which his labors have been 
directed. The author has seldom heard a ser- 
mon against Universalism, that was not based 
on assumptions, or directed against principles, 
which no well-informed Universalist at the pre- 
sent day admits. Such discourses, therefore, 
must not only be powerless, but give an oppo- 
nent great advantage in reply. 



12 

" Orthodox preachers, in order to acquaint 
themselves with the peculiarities of the sect, 
have, in too many cases, contented themselves 
with an examination of the masterly argument 
of the younger Edwards against Chauncy ; or 
the " Calvinism Improved," of Dr. Hunting- 
ton; or the writings of Winchester and Mitchell. 
Thus informed, they have constructed a most 
powerful argument, and completely overthrown 
the strong holds of the early advocates of this 
peculiar creed ; and they wonder that any can 
hold on to a docrine so untenable, and be Uni- 
versalists still. The truth is, that not a Univer- 
salist preacher in the land, so far as the author 
has been able to learn, does hold on to the sys- 
tem thus attacked. These are not their text 
books. They that would know what they be- 
lieve, must consult more modern writers, and 
gather their creed from more recent publica- 
tions, and inform themselves thoroughly in re- 
gard to the latest discoveries and intrenchments 
of the sect, or they will labor in vain. To aid 
such in this investigation, the following work 
was undertaken. " 

With all these considerations before him — the 
fatal nature of Universalism, its extensive prev- 
alence and prosperity, and the lamentable and 
almost universal ignorance of its true form and 
features among those who alone of all men can 
check its progress — it is seen at once, that a 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 13 

weight of responsibility rested upon our author 
to come forward, and, at the sacrifice of ease 
and pleasure, to lift the veil which shrouded its 
deformity, and present to the astonished world, 
" Universalism," naked and ugly, " as it is," 
and to give to theological students and his 
brethren, a " text book" of this antichristian, 
and fallacious, and soul-destroying system. 

There is one point, however, to which we 
wish to call attention, and which seems to us to 
demand at the hand of our author some little 
explanation. He has suffered no opportunity 
to pass unimproved where he could institute a 
comparison between the illiterateness of Univer- 
salists on the one hand, and the learning and 
tvisdom of their opposers on the other. The re- 
sult of these comparisons is, that Universal- 
ists " are confessedly, with here and there an 
exception, illiterate in a shameful degree," 
while the orthodox, so called, consist of " the 
wise, the learned, the profound, the intelligent, 
and the mighty." And yet with all this learn- 
ing, intelligence, profundity, and wisdom, they 
seem, by our author's own confession, to have 
allowed a most seductive and fatal system of 
error to grow up in their very midst ; to be 
preached and published for forty years in their 
own cities, towns, and villages, and not unfre- 
quently within a " bow shot" of their own 
churches and private dwellings ; to draw away 



14 

the members of their own congregations and 
churches in great numbers, and if we mistake 
not, several scores of their own preachers ; and 
still, notwithstanding all this, we are told in 
1841, by one of their number — professedly well 
acquainted with the facts — that hitherto they 
have been almost without an exception, and are 
at this moment grossly ignorant of " Universal- 
ism as it is !*' 

And what is still more remarkable, is the 
fact, that a denomination so large as the Uni- 
versalist has now become, should have been 
built up by men so shamefully illiterate, and 
ignorant, and in the midst of such a flood of 
learning, intelligence, and wisdom, and in spite 
of an organized, constant, and powerful oppo- 
sition, unparalleled heretofore in the history of 
religion in our country ! Here are some prob- 
lems which need solution. 

We would respectfully inquire how such 
facts are to be harmonized. How are we to 
account for the great learning and intelli- 
gence of our orthodox neighbors, and at the 
same time for their total want of knowledge on 
a subject confessedly so important to the ever- 
lasting welfare of souls 1 And how happens it 
that <s profound" as they are, they should here 
be profound only in ignorance ? Is it because 
Universalism is a harmless error? This will not 
be conceded ; for it is uniformly represented by 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 15 

its enemies as " the doctrine of the devil," and 
of course not only false as perjury, but also 
most pernicious in its tendencies and influence. 
Is it because Universalism has been dying 
away ? Perhaps this may be urged. But who 
has believed that it was dying away 1 Not " or- 
thodox preachers," certainly. Such represen- 
tations were never made for them, but for others 
who were not so " wise, profound and intelli- 
gent." Besides, had they no eyes, nor ears ? 
Must they believe that Universalism was de- 
clining because an orthodox editor affirmed it, 
and in opposition to their own senses ? But 
perhaps this ignorance is to be ascribed to Uni- 
versalists themselves, who have endeavored to 
keep dark, to hide their pretended light under 
a bushel, to screen their opinions from public 
notice and knowledge. If any one thinks thus, 
let him read again the first paragraph quoted 
above from our author, where he will learn that 
Universalists have been most industrious in 
endeavors to bring their doctrines before the 
public ; that the pulpit and the press have been 
most zealously employed in this work, and that 
not an attack, direct or indirect, on Universal- 
ism, not even a paragraph in a journal reflect- 
ing on its doctrines, could escape our watchful 
observation, and a " labored and spirited re- 
ply." Indeed, he represents us as having taken 
every method " to provoke discussion, and to 



16 review of hatfield's 

call out the people to hear our claims." Of 
this, the little list of Universalist books and pe- 
riodicals, which our author seems to have con- 
sulted, and which he has appended to his work, 
furnishes full proof; and yet this list is very 
imperfect, embracing scarcely a tithe of what 
has actually been published by us during the 
present century ! 

If " orthodox preachers, " then, are ignorant 
of Universalism, we think it not our fault. What 
more could we have done ? But have they ta- 
ken no pains to acquaint themselves with our 
real views ] Pains! Taken no pains'? If they 
had not, it would be strange, indeed : for how, 
then, could they be so intelligent and profound ] 
Yes, they have taken great pains. Have not 
many of them read " that masterly argument of 
the younger Ed wards V And " what further need 
have they of witnesses V 9 And even those who 
have not read that, have perhaps seen the work 
of some author who had read it ! And was not 
this enough ] Besides, there have been those 
enterprising and daring spirits who have gone 
out into the midst of the field of Universalist 
speculation and heresy, and have read Hunting- 
ton's " Calvinism Improved," or " Winchester's 
Dialogues," and Mitchell's writings.* 



* This last assertion we take on the authority of our au- 
thor alone. We know of but one volume written by Mr. 
Mitchell, and that was published so late as 1S33, and to it 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 17 

Such, then, has been the wide field in which 
" orthodox preachers," according to our author, 
have indulged their profundity and research in 
relation to Universalism ; and in this, according 
to the same authority, they " have contented 
themselves. " It ought be observed, however, that 
for the most part they have been contented at a 
much cheaper rate than this, and, as was hinted 
above, have satisfied themselves with quotations 
from these authors, found elsewhere, without 
the useless trouble of reading for themselves. 
Hence we are enabled to account for many lit- 
tle slips and errors, such as Huntingdon, instead 
of Huntington, Elkanah, instead of Elhanan, 
Winchester, etc., etc. 

Our author appears to entertertain a rather 
humble estimate of this kind of preparation for 
a warfare with Universalism, and smiles at the 
wonder of his brethren, who, after discharging 
their match-locks, loaded with the body of Ed- 
wards, cannot conceive why it is, that Univer- 
salists still live and dare to show their heads ! 
They conceive that immense execution must 
have been done, and can no more comprehend 
why Universalism is not wholly exploded, than 
the boy, who being kicked over by his blunder- 
buss, supposed that his game must of course be 
killed, and was astonished on recovering him- 

we have never seen the slightest allusion before in any or- 
thodox work whatever ! And if we mistake not, our author 
himself has never read it, and probably never even seen it. 

2 



18 review of hatfield's 

self to find his squirrel alive, and as fearless and 
merry as ever. But this is not the worst of the 
case. Our author has come to perceive that this 
kind of warfare in which his brethren generally 
engage, is not only " powerless, " incapable of 
injuring the cause against w 7 hich it is waged, 
but actually exposes, if not the truth of ortho- 
doxy, at least the wisdom and intelligence of its 
advocates, to suspicion and distrust. It gives 
"an opponent," he says u great advantage in 
reply." 

We cannot but press the inquiry whether 
the acknowledged ignorance of Universalism 
among " orthodox preachers," is to be regarded 
as an instance of their wisdom, profoundness, 
and intelligence ? And w r hether they have ta- 
ken equal pains to make themselves acquainted 
with other subjects which as nearly concern 
them ] Is it true, that in the matter of ortho- 
dox theology they follow some leader with as 
much fidelity, and as undoubting confidence, 
and as sterling, thoroughgoing perseverance, 
as they have followed the younger Edwards, for 
the last fifty years ? If this be so, and we sus- 
pect that with many it is, our author has great 
reason to congratulate himself on their "learn- 
ing," and "intelligence," and their people to 
confide in their teachings in other respects, who 
have been so trustworthy in this ! 

But now a new era is beginning to dawn in the 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 19 

orthodox world, Our author has girded himself 
to the task and descended into the very abyss of 
Universalist heresy, and brought up and exposed 
to light its abominations. After floundering on 
for forty years, battling with they knew not what, 
and gaining on many a field the most astonishing, 
but at the same time the most imaginary and use- 
less victories — victories which have well nigh 
proved their own ruin — " orthodox preachers'' 
are now for the first time to be enlightened in the 
mysteries of Universalism, and fitted by " a 
minute acquaintance" with its peculiarities for 
the noble task of proving that God will not have 
all men to be saved, and that Jesus Christ is not, 
and never was expected, to be the Savior of the 
world ! Hereafter we are to see all our arms 
turned back, all our fallacies exposed, all our 
hopes disappointed. This we are to expect, at 
least, if our author's work shall be read : but if 
they continue as they have done for half a cen- 
tury past, to oppose Universalism without know- 
ing, or troubling themselves to inquire, what it 
is ; if with all their learning and intelligence 
they are willing to " speak evil of things that 
they understand not," we are left to presume 
that our author's labors will prove in vain, and 
that Universalism may still outlive the danger 
that now threatens it ! Let us hope for the best; 
and yet believe that the men whom we have not 
been able to provoke to an examination of our 



20 

doctrines, will hardly be tempted to it by the un- 
promising title of " Universalism as it is." This, 
let us tell our author is not the kind of book 
which his brethren wish to read, and that if any 
part of the title-page is to serve them as a lure, 
it must be his own name. If they read anything 
of Universalism they wish to see it only in a light 
not " as it is." Perhaps, however, our author's 
name will be to them the surest guaranty that 
in this respect their wishes will not be mocked ; 
and if they need any further security, we will 
pledge ourselves that for once, they shall not be 
disappointed. And when they have made them- 
selves acquainted with Universalism from the 
volume before us, they will perhaps be induced 
to pursue the same course of study, and learn 
Christianity from Paine's Age of Reason, or the 
character and history of Christ himself from 
Ecce Homo ! 

It must be obvious, from what has already 
been said, that such a work as this purports to 
be, may be regarded as a desideratum for the 
orthodox community, and also for its theological 
students and ministry in general. Too timid, or 
too indolent, to seek a knowledge of Universalism 
from the original sources, they need, and have 
long needed, a work which in a small compass 
should give them a tolerably comprehensive and 
just idea of Universalism as it is in truth. Sev- 
eral works approximating more or less closely 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 21 

to this description, have been published by Uni- 
versalists ; but it seems to be a practical maxim 
with our opposers to suspect the orthodoxy of 
every one who is found studying Universalist 
books, or listening to Universalist preaching. 
To know what we believe, and on what grounds 
we believe it, makes no part of learning, intelli- 
gence, or profundity among them. Shut out, 
therefore, as our labors are from the great mass 
of orthodox minds, it is very desirable that some 
one of their own number who is qualified for the 
task, should undertake the work, and present to 
his brethren a faithful exposition of our much 
belied and misapprehended system. It would 
confer a favor on both parties, and we doubt not 
would receive the approbation of all candid men, 
which way soever their own faith might incline. 
To prepare such a work would obviously re- 
quire some peculiar qualifications, both of heart 
and mind. The author must, in the first place, 
clearly comprehend the extent and the difficulties 
of his work. It is not a task for the idle hours 
of a few weeks, but would demand, we suspect, 
the reading and observation of a year or two, if 
not of several years. He must be intimately 
acquainted with his subject, with its length and 
breadth, and all its various bearings. He must 
know what Universalists believe, and on what 
grounds it is believed and defended. He must 
know what is common among them, and what 

2* 



22 review of hatfield's 

is held only by a few individuals. He must un- 
derstand what are their points of difference, and 
how they regard and treat them. All this, and 
much more of the same kind, is clearly necessary 
in the author, who undertakes to write " Univer- 
salism as it is." But in addition to this knowl- 
edge of his subject, a knowledge to be fully attain- 
ed only by patient study, he must be possessed of 
at least an ordinary share of candor, perhaps 
we should say, of a great and uncommon degree 
of it. The chief aim of such a work should be 
to exhibit the truth, the whole truth, and nothing 
but the truth. It should seek no concealment, 
indulge in no exaggeration, admit no perversions. 
If Universalism is false, this seems to us one of 
the most effectual means of exposing and re- 
futing it ; if it is true, then it lies beyond the 
reach of refutation. We do not maintain that 
the work should be entirely free from contro- 
versy, but it is obvious that this aspect should 
be subordinate to its main design, and not con- 
stitute that design itself. We complain not of 
exposure, but of calumny ; not of refutation, but 
of being caricatured and misrepresented. 

That this work is somewhat difficult of execu- 
tion is owing to no peculiarities of our condition. 
It is true, we avowedly tolerate a greater free- 
dom of thought and opinion, than most deno- 
minations around us. We have no creed but 
the Bible, to which to bind men's consciences ; 



UNIVERSALIS*! AS IT IS. 23 

and even if we had, it may well be doubted 
whether it would be able to ensure an entire 
unity of faith. If it could do that for us, it would 
do more than creeds have ever done for any of 
our fellow men. Who does not know that Con- 
fessions of Faith are rather the Shibboleths of 
party, the watchwords of sects, than the symbols 
of the true and living faith of those who adopt 
them 1 In vain do men appeal to the authority 
of councils, or to the infallibility even of the Pope 
or of the church. Two persons, who think at all, 
can hardly be expected to think on all subjects 
just alike ; and if two cannot, two hundred 
thousand, or two millions surely will not. It is 
useless to refer to any of the denominations 
around us, for proof that creeds have the power 
to secure uniformity in this respect. Few creeds 
are more circumstantial than that of the Pres- 
byterian church, and yet, aside from the great 
division of Old School and New School which 
has split it in twain, there exists an almost end- 
less diversity of faith among its individual mem- 
bers of both parties. And notwithstanding their 
Confession of Faith, we all know that it would 
be no easy task to make a faithful presentation 
of " Presbyterianism as it is." It would require 
much patient study, and no common exercise of 
candor, even for a Presbyterian, to do full and 
equal justice to all concerned ; and for an indi- 
vidual of another sect, and especially if filled 



24 

with prejudice and enmity, and partisan spirit, 
it might be regarded as an almost hopeless 
attempt ! Such an individual might call his 
book what he pleased, but candid men of all 
parties would justly suspect a work produced 
under such circumstances. 

But we must turn our attention to the second 
inquiry suggested at the commencement of these 
pages — how has our author accomplished his 
design, in the work under consideration ? Before 
attempting to answer this question, it may be 
proper to ask whether our author's avoioed ob- 
ject was his real one. Was it his design to give, 
as his title-page purports, a fair and faithful 
presentation of Universalism as it is, with a sole 
reference to truth, and without any wish to mis- 
represent or caricature it ? This question, we 
regret to say, we cannot answer in the affirma- 
tive. The execution of the task which he as- 
sumed, furnishes no evidence of such a com- 
mendable purpose, and if we except the title of 
the book and the declaration of our author on 
the subject, we are left without the shadow of a 
reason to think that this constituted any part of 
his object. 

We are aware that, this opinion may seem 
severe, and we shall, therefore, offer some of the 
reasons upon which it is founded. In the first 
place, then, let it be observed, that while our 
author professes to exhibit Universalism as it is, 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 25 

he has omitted all notice of many points of be- 
lief which have ever been regarded as essential 
to the integrity of our faith. To show this we 
remark that his work consists of twenty four 
chapters, of which the following are the titles. 
1. Primitive Universalism. 2. Prevailing creed 
of Universalism. 3. Final happiness of all 
mankind. 4. Penalty of Sin. 5. Denial of 
Native Depravity. 6. No Punishment after 
Death. 7. Sin ceases at Death. — Death not 
the fruit of Sin. 8. Man has no immortal Soul. 
9. No escape from Punishment. 10. Sin its 
own Punishment. 11. No such thing as Pun- 
ishment. 12. Denial of the Atonement. 13. 
The sufferings of Christ not peculiar. 14. De- 
nial of the Trinity. 15. God's favor never lost. 
16. This life not probationary to another. 17. 
Faith not necessary to future Happiness. 18. 
The New Birth. 19. The Resurrection State. 
20. The Day of Judgment. 21. Devil and his 
Angels. 22. Christians have no Ordinances. 
23. Fruits of Universalism. 24. Learning of 
Universalist Preachers. 

Now it can escape the observation of no one, 
even slightly acquainted with the subject, that 
our author has made no mention of several im- 
important doctrines held without exception by 
the Universalists. Of our faith in Godwin his 
attributes and government ; in Jesus Christ, as his 
Son, and the Savior of the world ; in the authen- 



26 review of hatfield's 

ticity and inspiration of the Bible, etc. etc., our 
author says nothing, or what he does say is only 
incidental, and rather calculated to convey the 
idea, which he expresses clearly in the very out- 
set, that " Universalism has but little more of 
Christianity than the name, is a crafty system 
of covert infidelity, and does not deserve to be 
ranked as a Christian denomination !" To say 
that this may be ascribed to ignorance, or over- 
sight, will not avail ; for the author professes to 
possess M a minute acquaintance" with his sub- 
ject, and has moreover referred to several 
works which exhibit these points with great 
clearness ; while all the writings which he claims 
to have examined, are avowedly conducted on 
an undoubting belief in the existence and perfec- 
tions of God, in the mission of Jesus Christ, and 
the devine authority of the Sacred Scriptures ! 

Again, no one can fail to notice, that our 
author has managed to introduce in several in- 
stances, not what we believe, but precisely what 
we do not believe. For example, instead of 
giving our real views on the subject of human 
depravity, he introduces our "denial of native 
depravity :" and so likewise our " denial of atone- 
ment, " — " denial of the trinity," etc. etc. The 
want of candor manifested in this course is ob- 
vious to all. It is as if we should characterize 
every opinion of Presbyterians which diners 
from our own as a denial of what we regard 



UNIVERSALIS*! AS IT IS. 27 

fundamental Christian truth ! .But in the case 
before us, it is incomparably more pernicious, as 
it is calculated only to perpetuate ignorance re- 
specting our true views, and foster prejudices 
which are strong enough already. 

There is another remai'k that belongs here. 
Let any man with the slightest conception of 
order and systematic arrangement, glance for 
one moment at the series of subjects presented 
by our author, and tell us if he can perceive any 
thing like system or sequence here. His table 
of contents presents nothing but chaos, emphati- 
cally " without form and void," and " darkness," 
it seems to us must have rested not only on our 
authors work, but on his mind also. His subject 
must have presented itself to him without either 
u beginning, middle or end." But write he must 
and write he would, whether he comprehended 
his task or not. Hence it happens, that accord- 
ing to his representation, Universalists make 
" the final happiness of all mankind," the first 
article of their faith while as yet he leaves his 
readers in profound ignorance whether they be- 
lieve in the Scriptures or even in a God ! And 
this, if our author is to be believed, is Universalism 
as it is ! This is the " text-book" for " theolo- 
gical students" and " orthodox preachers." 

Once more : it must not be overlooked that 
our author, unsatisfied with exhibiting what we 
do not believe, is kind enough to introduce as 



28 

another part of our faith, his own inferences and 
conclusions, from opinions which are more or 
less generally received among us. Take one in- 
stance, from chapters ninth, tenth, and eleventh, 
where he represents us as believing, first, that 
there is " no escape from punishment," and 
second that " sin is its own punishment," and 
lastly, which is his own well or ill-grounded in- 
ference, as the case may be, that there is " no 
such thing as punishment ! ! To say nothing of 
the absurdity of charging those who believe " in 
no escape from punishment" with at the same, 
maintaining that there is " no such thing as 
punishment," the above is a specimen of as rank 
injustice as could well be committed. But our 
author is not easily pleased. He complains of 
our belief that God " will by no means clear the 
guilty," but will " reward every man according 
to his works ;" and then he turns round and 
abuses us, because we do not believe that the 
divine punishments are merely vindictive, and 
designed only to torment, without benefitting 
the punished. This, according to our clear sight- 
ed author, is the same as to maintain that there 
is " no such thing as punishment !" 

But this is not all. Our author goes still 
farther, and charges us, as a body, with believing 
what, we think, no individual in the denomina- 
tion believes : or at least of which he has furn- 
ished not a particle of evidence ! We now 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 29 

allude particularly to what he lays down as our 
faith in relation to angels, that they are " only 
our fellow men." The only evidence of this 
grave but false accusation, is, that our writers 
have defined the Greek word angellos, Messen- 
ger, and in some places interpreted it of human 
beings — a thing which our author either knows 
or ought to know, has been done by, perhaps, 
every commentator that ever lived ! ! And yet 
he asserts, not only without evidence, but in the 
very face of much plain and undeniable proof 
that we believe " there are no merely spiritual 
beings called angels, either holy or unholy. " 

To say that all these things are the result of 
ignorance, w 7 ould be a reflection on our author's 
understanding. He cannot have read the works 
to which he refers, without knowing that his ex- 
hibition of Universalism is exceedingly imperfect 
in its design, and defective in its execution ; that 
it is an uncandid, and, considered as a whole, a 
false presentation of his subject ; that it exag- 
gerates, caricatures and misrepresents our faith, 
and is altogether unworthy of public confidence. 

We are willing to concede that our author's 
acquaintance with Universalism is not so in- 
timate and " minute" as he is pleased to repre- 
sent it : we see no evidences of a familiar know- 
ledge of the controversy which has been going 
on in this country, for the last fifty years ; but 
we do see traces and tokens enough that he 

3 



30 

knew nothing or very little of it ; and that the 
work before us is the result of a very hasty effort 
to which he has been urged by a malignant 
spirit of opposition and enmity to Universalism. 
The whole work was the fruit of a few weeks' 
labor, commenced and finished soon after the 
renunciation of Mr. Whittaker : and unless we 
are greatly deceived, owes no small portion of 
the quotations with which it is filled to the 
Universalist reading of the latter individual. 
That our author should have gone through with 
the thirty five or forty volumes to which he 
has referred, in the space of about four months, 
and " in the midst of his other very numerous 
and arduous avocations," and at the same time 
have prepared for the press the articles which 
compose this volume, is not so credible as to be 
believed without proof! We doubt whether he 
has ever read a tithe of the works, which he 
quotes. But if he had not, probably Mr. W. 
had, and our only surprise is that no acknow- 
ledgement is made of his very important services. 
u Honor to whom honor is due." 

The design of the work, as that design is de- 
veloped in the pages of the work itself, was not 
to present Universalism as it is, not to instruct 
the learned ignorance of our author's very pro- 
found and intelligent brethren, not to win back 
Universalists from their errors, nor to introduce 
them to a better mode of thinking and reading, 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 31 

not to refute Universalism by sound Scriptural 
argument, nor yet manfully to defend the ortho- 
dox faith, which Universalism endangers, but it 
was simply to appeal to orthodox prejudices, to 
startle and alarm orthodox fears, to awaken the 
childish apprehensions of the ignorant and timid 
by misrepresenting Universalism, and thus mak- 
ing it to the vulgar mind a bugbear to be dreaded 
and shunned. Whether such a design is worthy 
of a truly enlightened and christian mind, we 
shall willingly submit to the public. That the 
work before us will have its readers is not a mat- 
ter of doubt : and that with one class of readers 
it will produce the desired effect is as little to be 
doubted. Those who already think Universalism 
a damnable heresy, who would not listen for a 
moment to " its syren song," for fear of being 
convinced that it is true, and who would see 
it only in a false light, that they might dislike 
and dread it the more, will find in the work be- 
fore us all that their souls desire: and such after 
reading and believing it, whole and entire, will 
lift up their hands and eyes in pious wonder and 
marvel, first, at the learning and profundity and 
wisdom of its author, and, then, at the awful 
ignorance and delusion of the godless, prayerless, 
" anti-christian" and licentious Universalists ! 

There is, however, another class who are not 
in the habit of believing because this or that man 
says so and so, but because they have reasons to 



32 REVIEW OF HATFIELD'S 

justify their belief: they are apt to inquire, to 
examine and compare, and to decide on rational 
grounds. Such persons will read and be profit- 
ed by reading the work before us : they will see 
the perverse and malignant spirit of our author, 
and be stimulated by his abuse of Universalism 
and Universalist, to know more of this subject. 
The result cannot be doubtful : they will soon 
suspect the soundness of that cause which needs 
to resort to such measures as our author has 
adopted in order to secure itself, or effectually 
to assail another system of faith : they will learn 
the little value to be attached to the great pro- 
fessions made by some men of piety, charity and 
truth ; and thus " the wrath of man" shall turn 
to the praise of God, and what our author meant 
for evil, shall result in good. 

That our readers may form a tolerable concep- 
tion of the work before us, so far as relates to 
its design, execution and spirit, we will present 
a brief synopsis of a work that might easily be 
written, to be called Presbyteriamsm as it is. 
The materials for such a work should be careful- 
ly brought together from fifty or a hundred wri- 
ters, no matter who or where, no matter wheth- 
er Old School or New School or no School at 
all ; no matter whether Drs, Green, Alexander, 
Judkin or Breckenridge ; Drs. Beecher, Betnan, 
Barnes, Lansing, Cox or Parker; President 
Mahan or Prof. Finney ; Rev. Mr. Burchard, 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 33 

Foot, Johnson or Hatfield ; no matter whether 
in books, periodicals or pamphlets, the learned 
commentary or the Oberlin Evangelist, or even 
the Evangelist of New York ; with name or with- 
out name, in prose or poetry ; let scraps and 
sentences be brought together from them all, 
without the slightest regard to their knowledge, 
standing or influence in the Presbyterian Church ; 
and let this mass constitue the materials for the 
great work. Now to present Pesbyterianism as 
it is, these materials must be duly arranged and 
the various opinions they express so set in order 
as to exhibit the subject in a clear and striking 
light. Of course there must be twenty or thirty 
articles in the creed of Presbyterians, and thus 
they stand : 

1. That some of the human race will actually 
suffer endless torments. 

2. The chief end of man for which he was creat- 
ed will never be attained. 

3. Men are born totally depraved and deserving 
of hell-fire for ever. 

4. Sin had its origin in heaven. 

5. Man was created immortal, and would have lived 
for ever had he not sinned and died. 

6. Sin possesses a self-perpetuating power and 
can never be destroyed. 

7. There is a trinity of persons in the Godhead. 

8. God does not love unrepentant sinners. 

9. Christ, who also is God, loves sinners and will 
save as man} 7 as he can from his Father's wrath. 

3* 



34 review of hatfield's 

10. Some men and angels are elected from all 
eternity to endless felicity. 

11. Others were passed by and foreordained to 
hell-torments for ever to the praise of God's glorious 
justice. 

12. Christ died for all men. 

13. Christ did not die for all men. 

14. All for whom Christ died will certainly be 
saved. 

15. Christ's dying for all men is no proof that a 
single soul will be saved. 

16. All men can be saved if they please. 

17. Sin is infinite. 

18. The penalty of God's law is endless punish- 
ment. 

19. Absolute certainty characterizes the divine 
administration — there is nothing to encourage the 
least hope of impunity. 

20. The atonement of Christ was designed to free 
men from the punishment of sin. 

21. The atonement is vicarious. 

22. The atonement is not vicarious. 

23. The soul of man is immortal. 

24. The happiness or misery of man through 
eternity depends wholly on his present life. 

25. All the elect will certainly be saved. 

26. The non-elect can not be saved. 

27. The devil is a mighty fallen angel. 

28. All men go immediately at death to heaven 
or hell. 

29. There will be a general future judgment. 

30. Regeneration can be produced only by their- 
resistable influences of the Holy Spirit. 



UNIVERSALIS*! AS IT IS. 35 

31. Some infants will be damned. 

32. All infants dying in infancy will be saved. 

33. The number of the elect is much less than 
that of the non-elect. 

34. The number of those who will finally be sav- 
ed will so far surpass the number of the lost that the 
latter will be almost forgotten. 

35. Man is a free moral being. 

36. Man has lost his moral freedom, and can now 
do nothing but sin. 

37. The Lord's day is the Jewish Sabbath, trans- 
ferred, and wholly changed. 

Such are some of the peculiarities which are 
held by Presbyterians and are to be proved in the 
contemplated work. To these many more arti- 
cles may be added, some of which are mere in- 
ferences, and others mere assertions without proof. 
But whatever they may be, they are to be parad- 
ed in due form, and the proofs attached, and ac- 
companied with notes and comments containing 
every expression of contempt, ridicule, and as- 
tonishment, ornamented with italics, small capi- 
tals, exclamation points, and all the small arms 
of the printer's art. Nothing is to be too severe, 
too contemptuous, too insulting, to be said of 
Presbyterians and Presbyterianism. To abuse, 
misrepresent and caricature them and their faith 
must be the chief object of the work, and after 
having attained this, as far as the writer is able, let 
him smile and say that he " owes them not the 
least ill-will, or aught but love," and call his 



36 review of hatfield's 

work, " Presbyterianism as it is, or a Text Book 
for students in Theology, and preachers in gen- 
eral ! !" 

If any one could suppose such a work candid, 
just, and worthy of confidence ; if any one could 
believe it to be the fruit of a charitable spirit and 
designed to promote knowledge, virtue and good 
will among men, then we advise him to purchase 
" Universalism as it is, by Rev. E.F. Hatfield," 
and he will find a work which has been com- 
posed on this plan, and executed with its author's 
usual felicity and skill — a work which breathes 
his spirit, exhibits his candor and love of truth, 
and must, sooner or later, secure him the envia- 
ble distinction which his labors merit. 

It was with the keenest satire that Le Clerc 
laid down the following rule for ecclesiastical 
historians, and which, as may easily be seen, ap- 
plies with equal justice to many of those who 
have occasion, or make occasion when they 
have none, to speak of such as differ from them- 
selves in matters of religion. " An ecclesias- 
tical historian," says he, " ought to adhere in- 
violably to this maxim, that whatever is favora- 
ble to heretics is false, and whatever can be 
said against them is true ; while, on the other 
hand, all that does honor to the orthodox is un- 
questionable, and every thing that can do them 
discredit is surely a lie. He must suppress, 
too, with care, or at least extenuate as far as 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 37 

possible, the errors and vices of those whom 
the orthodox are accustomed to respect, wheth- 
er they know any thing about them or no ; and 
must exaggerate, on the contrary, the mistakes 
and faults of the heterodox to the utmost of his 
power. He must remember that any orthodox 
writer is a competent witness against a heretic, 
and is to be implicitly believed on his word ; 
while a heretic is never to be believed against 
the orthodox, and has honor enough done him 
in allowing him to speak against his own side 
or in favor of ours." 

Whether our author had ever consulted these 
maxims, we can not pretend to say ; it is 
enough, however, to know that he has adopted 
them fully and practiced on them throughout 
his whole work. Our future labors will ex- 
hibit many illustrations of these remarks. 

To present " Universalism as it is," our au- 
thor begins by giving a very hasty and imper- 
fect sketch of it as it was ; and also of three or 
four of its early advocates in America. Brief, 
however, as these notices are, he does not fail 
to inform his readers that Murray was guilty, 
at one period of his youth, of " a constant 
round of follies and dissipation," and that Dr. 
Chauncy, forty years before he became an ad- 
vocate of Universalism, "had distinguished him- 
self as a writer against vital religion." His 
crime consisted in writing a work entitled, 



38 

" Seasonable Thoughts, " in which, says our 
author, " he endeavored to destroy the influ- 
ence of Mr. Whitefield, and boldly maintained 
that the great revival of 1740, was a wretched 
excitement, fraught only with evil to the church- 
es. " This serious charge of writing against, 
and consequently of opposing, " vital religion, " 
it might be well to remember, is made only a 
hundred years after the offence was committed, 
and made, too, under very different circumstan- 
ces. The work now so hastily condemned was 
probably approved at the time of its publica- 
tion by seven eighths of the clergymen, all or- 
thodox of course, in New England. For Meth- 
odism and " revivals," let it be borne in mind, 
were not so fashionable a century ago, as they 
now are, nor were the u Pilgrim Fathers," of 
whom our author speaks with so much rever- 
ence, disposed to treat either with any great 
lenity. Be this as it may, however, poor Chaun- 
cy does not seem to have been excluded from 
the orthodox church for writing against " vital 
religion," but was made a Doctor of Divinity, 
and continued pastor of the First Church in 
Boston till the time of his death ! 

We mention these things merely to show the 
temper of our author. Had Murray become an 
" orthodox preacher," the sins of his youth 
would have been alluded to, if alluded to at all, 
in a very different manner, and for a different 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 39 

purpose ; and bad Chauncy not subsequently 
become a Universalist, his writing the Season- 
able Thoughts would have been remembered 
no more. 

But " Universalism" says our author, "is 
notioliatit was" and "they who judge of it 
by the writings of either Chauncy, Hunting- 
ton, Murray, or Winchester, form a very erro- 
neous idea of the system. " To reveal this im- 
portant truth to his learned and intelligent 
brethren, after forty years of ignorance on 
their part, constitutes the avowed object of the 
author of " Universalism as it is," and no one 
certainly can doubt that it is high time this 
work was done. The inquisitive and compre- 
hensive mind of the pastor of the Seventh Pres- 
byterian Church, has made the discovery that, 
during the present century Universalism " has 
undergone an almost constant process of transi- 
tion." And so felicitous did this thought ap- 
pear that he could not refrain from recurring to 
it again. " I presume not to say," he adds, 
with the same exulting emphasis, " what these 
transitionists will yet become." There is infi- 
nite wit, it must be acknowledged, in this con- 
ceit, and well does our author merit for apply- 
ing it so ingeniously. What can be more hap- 
py or more convincing indeed, than the idea 
that Universalism is in a " transition-state" ? — 
Who can fail to see that to change one's reli- 



40 review or hatfield's 

gious opinions, (except it be to adopt modern 
orthodoxy,) or to believe differently from our 
fathers, is not merely a heinous sin, but also a 
thing to be made the but of ridicule, and the 
subject of every witling's senseless mirth ] 

To confess the truth, Universalists have not 
been accustomed to make the opinions of any 
man the standard of faith. We have no Pope, 
to determine what we shall believe ; nor have 
we had any Council, like that of Dort, nor any 
Assembly, like that of the Westminster divines, 
to make us a creed, nor have we had any man 
like Wesley to give us ecclesiastical constitu- 
tions, and mould our condition, and fortunes, 
and faith, for all coming time. In this respect, 
we are singular, and perhaps unfortunate. But 
while we desire to reverence all good and truth- 
loving minds, and to follow them so far as we 
can see that they follow the teachings of inspi- 
ration, we do not hesitate to avow that "the 
Bible is our only and sufficient rule of faith and 
practice." And instead of being bound to fol- 
low the early advocates of Universalism in 
America or elsewhere, we choose to study the 
Scriptures for oui selves. We say with Calvin, 
" What was the opinion of Jerome, I regard 
not; let us inquire what is truth/' 

But who is this sneerer at change of opinion, 
who makes himself merry at the thought that 
we are " transitionists" and that our doctrine 



UNIVERSALIS*! AS IT IS. 41 

is in a transition- state" ? One would suppose 
him a man who had sworn never to know or be- 
lieve any thing which had not been known and 
believed by his church before him ; one who 
thinks that his creed embraces all truth, and 
that to swerve from it is only to fall into error. 
But who is he ? Who % He is a New School 
Presbyterian, professing, it is true, to believe 
and preach the doctrines of the Presbyterian 
Confession of Faith, but yet known neither to 
believe nor preach them in fact. Professing to 
believe in eternal election and reprobation, he 
preaches that all may be saved if they choose ; 
acknowledging a creed that teaches foreordina- 
tion, he preaches free-will ; professing to be- 
lieve in a limited atonement, he proclaims a 
universal one ; standing pledged to a Confes- 
sion which clearly implies the damnation of a 
large portion of infants, he maintains that all 
infants dying in infancy will certainly be saved. 
In short he is a man connected with a party 
which has, within the last twenty years, been sap- 
ping little by little, the foundations of the Pres- 
byterian Church, and, by forced and false in- 
terpretations, frittering away its ancient stand- 
ards, or boldly denying them, until finally it 
was ejected from her bosom, and now stands an 
outcast for heresy, from her fold ! ! Sneers at 
transition come from the lips of such a one with 

4 



42 REVIEW OF HATFIELD'9 

peculiar grace. They become the author, and 
the school to which he belongs ! 

We do not speak thus because we think it a 
reproach to the New School men to have aban- 
doned the peculiar dogmas of Calvinism. God 
forbid. That creed was formed in an iron age, 
and by men who thought God not merely like, 
but infinitely less kind-hearted and benevolent 
than, themselves. That age has passed away, 
or is rapidly passing, and it is time that the 
creed which it produced was gone with it, and 
laid in a grave from which, we devoutly pray, 
for the honor of God and the happiness of his 
creatures, there may be no resurrection. But 
let men be frank and honest. They need not 
be ashamed to think better of God than Augus- 
tine or Calvin, or any of their hearty followers 
ever thought. Let them not, weakly or wick- 
edly, deem it a worse crime to differ from their 
church than to be hypocrites. And while they 
themselves are outcasts for having changed their 
opinions, and virtually abandoned the Confes- 
sion to which they were most solemnly pledg- 
ed, we would advise them to be sparing of their 
sneers and taunts at the " transition" of those 
who have never professed any man-made creed, 
and are bound in conscience as well as duty to 
adopt and follow truth, come whence and how 
it may. We have yet to learn that falsehood 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 43 

is the less false because Calvin or any other 
man, or class of men, has received it and been 
engaged in its inculcation; or that truth is less 
worthy of acceptation, because it was not all 
known to Chauncy, Huntington, Winchester 
or Murray. 

Our author appears to find the greatest plea- 
sure in speaking of Universalism as tending to 
infidelity. He allows no opportunity to pass 
where this thought can be obtruded upon the 
attention of his readers. It is true the facts 
on which this broad charge is predicated, are 
extremely meagre ; but what he wants in facts 
he is determined to make up by constant reit- 
eration. It happened twelve or fifteen years 
ago that one Universalist minister, Abner Knee- 
land, rejected Christianity, and became a follow- 
er of Robert Owen. And from that day to this, 
he has been a standing example to show the 
infidel tendency of Universalism ! But how 
many u orthodox preachers," let us ask, have 
within the same period, renounced Christianity ] 
It was not our author's purpose, of course, to 
inform us ; but had he done it, he would have 
discovered a still stronger tendency to infidel 
principles in that great party. But how hap- 
pens it that while the single case of Abner 
Kneeland proves an infidel tendency in Uni- 
versalism, the case of Wm. Whittaker, M. H. 
Smith, and the six a?id twenty other Universal- 



44 review of hatfield's 

ist preachers, whom our author mentions as hav- 
ing renounced Universalism in disgust, do not 
prove its tendency to modern orthodoxy '? May 
we hope to see this question answered ? 

But our author has another proof of infidel- 
ity in Universalism. " Deists and Atheists," 
he tells us, " have also, of late, so extensively 
made common cause with Universalists — many 
such holding offices of trust in the societies — that 
they may yet become the majority" ; and "soon 
the very name of Christianity may be discard- 
ed ! !" ' 

All this is said by our conscientious author, 
not because he believed it, but simply for effect. 
He is not ignorant that there are as many infi- 
dels in orthodox societies, in proportion to their 
numbers, as there are in the societies of Uni- 
versalists, and they hold as many offices of trust 
in the former as in the latter. Universalists 
have no sympathy with either Deism or Athe- 
ism ; at the same time we do not wonder that 
there are many individuals who avow both. — 
When we remember the doctrines preached for 
Christianity ; the spirit of malignity and hatred 
indulged by many professed christians ; the 
frequent departures of religious partizans from 
decency and truth, it should not be thought 
singular that some minds should be shaken for 
the faith, and left to grope in the dark. 

But Universalism is " covert infidelity, and 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS* 45 

Universalists are " infidels ! !" Origen, we sup- 
pose then, was an infidel, and so were the several 
other fathers who believed in Universalism. — 
Bishop Newton was also an infidel, and Bishops 
Rust, Warburton and Hurd, and even Arch- 
bishop Tillotson, were little better. Dr. Parr 
was near being an infidel, and William Law, 
who wrote the " Serious Call," was a down- 
right one. Dr. Hartley was an infidel also, and 
so was Tucker. Dr. Paley with his " Evidences 
of Christianity," is much suspected of infidelity, 
and John Locke may as well go with him ; and 
even Bp. Butler, notwithstanding his " Analo- 
gy," can not escape just suspicion. Dr. Walker 
■and President Forbes have little to save them 
from the same fate. On the Continent, Jung 
Stilling and Petersen were thorough-going infi- 
dels, and even Dr. Knapp, whose Lectures have 
been translated at Andover, stood on the brink 
of infidelity. Doederlein was worse still, and 
so was Von Coelln. Tholuck was at one time 
fairly lost in the current of infidelity, and is 
now holding on to the faith only by a straw. — 
As for those ignoramuses, Gesenius, Winer, De 
Wette, Bretschneider, Credner, and a host of 
others, they may be dispatched with a single 
word — they are all a pack of infidels together ! 
And as to America, it would be useless to speak. 
True, the Universalists have written several 
volumes and preached much in favor of chris- 

4* 



46 review of hatfield's 

tianity, but this was merely because they are 
infidels. Who but infidels would write or read 
Pickering's " Lectures/' or Williamson's "Ar- 
gument," or Thayer's " Christianity vs. Infi- 
delity," or Smith's " Causes of Infidelity re- 
moved" ? 

There is a kind of practical infidelity, we 
would suggest, which sometimes lurks under 
the loudest professions of faith. Some infidels 
cry " Lord, Lord !" and perhaps " tithe mint, 
and anise, and cummin," but they are slow to 
heed " the weightier matters of the law," and 
can not, or will not, learn to exercise common 
charity, or even to speak the truth ! Of all in- 
fidelity this is, perhaps, the most dangerous, 
and we might reasonably expect that those who 
are most unwilling that Universalism should be 
true are also the most likely to indulge it. 

" Universalism," says our author, " began its 
career with a denial of the doctrine of endless 
punishment . : . Falsehood can never harmonize 

with truth To make the Bible teach the 

final happiness of all the human race, its threat- 
enings must be silenced, or limited in their ap- 
plication. Every opposing doctrine must be 
made to bend, or be cast away. Philosophy 
and criticism must be called in to make the 
Scriptures speak, in all their parts, but one 
voice." Does our author think they speak in 
their several parts in different voices ? " A 



UNIVERSALIS]*! AS IT IS. 47 

theological system, almost entirely new, is the 
product. This system of belief, now openly 
avowed and published to the world, bears but 
little resemblance to any other. It is neither 
Calvinism, Antinomianism, Arminianism, nor 
Pelagianism. With Socinianism it sympathises 
to some extent, but never identifies itself." 

It is not a mortal sin, we hope, that Univer- 
salists have not adopted either of the one-sided 
and partial systems here mentioned. But if 
our author really thinks it so, will he be good 
enough to inform us what his opinion is of New 
School Presbyterianism, of which all that is 
here said of Universalism may be said with 
equal truth % That is neither Calvinism nor 
Antinomianism, nor Arminianism, nor Pelagi- 
anism, nor Wesleyanism, nor yet Socinianism, 
but a medley made up of something of them all. 

Our author, however, seems excessively sen- 
sitive in relation to Calvin. The editor of the 
Life of Murray speaks of " Calvinism rank 
and impure as it came from the hands of its 
author." This is an offence not to be forgiven. 
And what was said of Calvinism our author 
very generously and justly applies to Calvin 
himself, and endeavors to convict the editor of 
representing Calvin as " rank and impure." 
Now we humbly conceive that epithets may be 
applied to some of Calvin's doctrines which do 
not belong to Calvin himself; and so did the 



48 REVIEW OF HATFIELD'S 

editor referred to actually speak. That Cal- 
vinism is " rank," and considered in a moral 
point of view " impure," may, we think, be be- 
lieved without any great offence against truth or 
charity ; and we are well assured that our au- 
thor thinks thus as much as we. Let any man 
read Calvin's Institutes, and tell us candidly, if 
the editor spoke too harshly. Coleridge said, 
" Calvinism, or the belief in election, is not 
simply blasphemy,but the superfetation of blas- 
phemy." Let our author settle the matter w T ith 
Coleridge, or if he dislikes this, let him dispute 
the point with John Wesley. 

But this is not all ; the editor of the Life of 
Murray represented Calvinism as " adapted to 
the unenlightened natures of our Puritan fore- 
fathers." " Thus," says our author, " even ' the 
Pilgrim Fathers? were ignorant, superstitious 
and bigoted, in the estimation of this new sect." 
To hang innocent people for witches, is, of 
course, in the opinion of our author, no token 
of ignorance or superstition ; and to disfran- 
chise all who are not church-members ; to whip 
Baptists, and banish Quakers, is no proof of 
intolerance or bigotry ! ! According to the same 
enlightened and catholic spirit, it is maintained 
by the New York Evangelist, of which our au- 
thor is an editor, that Universalists are not en- 
titled to their oath, and consequently should be 
disfranchised, and reduced, in a civil view, be- 



UNIVERSALIS*! AS IT IS. 49 

neath the condition of a southern slave ! Let 
no one accuse our author of ignorance or bigotry, 
or indulge the idea that there is abroad in our 
city or the land even the slightest tendency to 
persecution. 

But unluckily for our author, he himself is as 
severe upon the character of these venerated 
" pilgrim forefathers," as the editor of whom 
he complains. It is much less than a year since, 
when in the presence of the writer, he spoke 
of the Presbyterian Confession of Faith, as be- 
ing the work of " mail-clad men," whom he 
represented as stern and little susceptible of 
the milder virtues and charities of the enlight- 
ened christian. Hence eternal election and 
reprobation, limited atonement, infant damna- 
tion, and all that class of doctrines, belonged to 
a by-gone age, and were unadapted to the more 
perfect moral and social developement of the 
present day. Has he changed his views since 
our conversation late in July 1840 % * 

Our author is exceedingly puzzled to determine 
in such a way as to please himself who are Uni- 
versalists. He is very desirous to make them a 
" motley sect," and at the same time to ascribe to 
them a " system" of faith to which they must all 
adhere in order to deserve the name of Universa- 
lists. This, of course, is a difficult point to man- 
age, and with all his cleverness he is unable to 
avoid what seems like a palpable contradiction. 

* See Note A. 



50 review of hatfield's 

On p. 25, he quotes a passage from the Plain 
Guide to Universalism, which says, " All per- 
sons who truly believe in the eventual salvation of 
all mankind by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, 
are Universalists.^ This seems to be intelligible 
language, which even our author himself could 
not well misapprehend, and he, therefore, goes 
on to say, " Thus every variety of doctrine may 
find a home in this motley sect, if it be linked 
to the belief of Universal Salvation. To swell 
their number they welcome them all. They 
search the records of the Church from the age of 
the apostles, and whenever they find one express- 
ing his doubts as to the endless duration of the 
punishment of the wicked, they forthwith proclaim 
him one of them. In this manner they endeavor 
to show that their sect is ancient and honorable." 

Now this is partly true and partly false. We 
do call all Universalists who in any age of the 
christian church have believed in the ultimate 
holiness and happiness of all mankind through 
Jesus Christ, but our author knows that we do 
not proclaim those who merely express doubts 
of endless punishment to be Universalists. — 
Why then did he make such an assertion? We 
miffht as well ask why he wrote his book. 

Let us now turn to the next page, only one 
paragraph away from the passage just quoted. 
Here we see him adopting an entirely different 
mode of representation. " None," says he, 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 51 

M but those who receive the system, as now pro- 
fessed and taught, are regarded as real Universal- 
ists. Let this distinction be carefully marked." 
But what does our author mean ? On page 25 
he tells us that Universalists are a " motley 
sect," embracing every body that believes in uni- 
versal salvation, or that even doubts the truth of 
endless misery \ " They welcome them all." Yet 
on page 26, he informs us, with infinite coolness, 
that none are regarded as real Universalists, i. e- 
by Universalists themselves, but those who em- 
brace the system as now professed and taught. — 
Is our author beside himself, or does he suppose 
that " students in theology and his ministering 
brethren," can comprehend such a contradiction 
as this ? 

But this is not the worst of the case ; our pure 
minded author not only contradicts himself, but 
wittingly misrepresents his authorities in order 
to find a voucher for doing so. He quotes the 
Plain Guide to Universalism again, where Mr. 
Whittemore has said, " There are two kinds of 
Universalists . . . positive and negative Univer- 
salists. . . .Negative Universalists are those who 
merely assent to the doctrine. . . . Now there is a 
wide difference between these, and those we are 
pleased to call positive Universalists. The lat- 
ter embrace the doctrine with a living faith. — 
They not only believe it, but they feel it ; they 
love it ; it is the meat and drink of their souls ; 



52 review of hatfield's 

they have a constant and ever active desire that 
others may he brought to the knowledge of the 
truth ; they profess the truth openly ; they do 
all in their power to establish it in the world ; 
they love God's house ; they love the stated 
ministry of the word," etc. The whole passage 
was designed to set forth the wide difference be- 
tween merely nominal and real Universalists. — 
Its language and meaning can not be misunder- 
stood by the most careless reader. 

Now our author exhibits the perversity of his 
temper by quoting only so much of the passage 
as relates to negative Universalists, and then ap- 
plies it in such a manner as to make it draw a 
line of distinction, not between merely nom- 
inal Universalists and those who are real, zeal- 
ous, consistent and practical ones, as Mr. Whitte- 
more plainly meant, but between fc< those who 
receive the system, as now believed and taught by 
the leaders of the sect," and all others : i. e. 
between American Universalists and all the oth- 
er Universalists in the world ! Here is honesty. 
This is the man to write " Universalism as it is" ! 

But why this perversion of Mr. Whittemore's 
language ! We confess we see no motive but 
simply the opportunity it afforded our author to 
abuse Universalists. He wanted an occasion to 
say that u if one of these motley religionists re- 
nounces Universalism, he and the world are at 
once told that he never was a Universalist, ex- 



UNIVERSALIS*! AS IT IS. 53 

cept in name. He never received the system 
and embraced it with all his heart." The fact 
is, our author has been exceedingly unfortunate 
in the few cases in which he has stood spiritual 
god-father to renouncing Universalists. Out of 
the numerous cases of which he publicly boasts, 
he has never dared to name but three instances, 
and neither of these has tended in any degree to 
his glory. The last and most illustrious was 
that of Mr. Whittaker, who spoiled the whole 
affair by virtually acknowledging that he had 
never really believed in Universalism, but had 
been merely playing the gentle hypocrite for the 
eight years he had professed and preached it ! 
We acknowledge that our good-nature does not 
go so far in such a case as to even wish to call 
in question the individual's orthodox veracity. 
We have read many flaming accounts of con- 
verted Universalists. In many instances they 
themselves declare they never believed the doc- 
trine, although they professed it : and in most oth- 
er cases they show that they never knew any 
thing of it. 

That we in America maintain that none are 
real Universalists but those who receive our sys- 
te?n 9 is false length and breadth ; and our author 
knows it to be false, for he has said so himself, 
and sneers at the "motley sect" which embraces 
every variety of doctrine, and bids a welcome 
to all who believe in universal salvation ! 



54 review op hatfield's 

Our author takes unnecessary pains to show 
that our views differ in many respects from those 
of the ancient Universal ists, and also from the 
modern Universalists of Europe. This is as 
bootless a labor as it would be to prove that New 
School Presbyterianism is not Calvinism. And 
there is as much matter of reproach in one case 
as the other. It is generally understood that Amer- 
ican theology is not English theology, nor Ger- 
man, but is in many respects peculiar. Wheth- 
er it is better or worse is not a question to be 
discussed here, but if our author is as familiar 
with his profession as he ought to be, he need 
not be told that evangelical theology, as it is 
strangely enough called, is not the same every 
where. Why then does he represent it as a sub- 
ject of wonder that there is what may properly 
be called, and that without reproach, " American 
Universalism" 1 

It seems to afford our author singular relief 
to be able to transfer, in some measure, the vari- 
ous epithets of contempt and scorn which his 
more orthodox brethren have heaped upon his 
head and upon his party, to Universalists. Hence 
he calls us the " New Lights of the world ;" " the 
favored of heaven." " Hitherto," says he, "dark- 
ness has covered the earth, and gross darkness 
the people ! But the Lord has arisen upon 
them, and his glory has been seen upon them," 
etc. etc. All verv well we confess ; and still we 



UNIVERSALIS!*! AS IT IS. 55 

can not but think that these stereotyped expres- 
sions, which have been bandied about in his own 
church so much for ten or fifteen years past, are 
rather stale, and were scarcely required in so 
candid and scientific a work as " The Text-Book 
of Modern Universalism." 

But our author is greatly annoyed by the man- 
ner in which Universalists speak of the doctrine 
of endless torments. We have called it a 
" wretched hypothesis," " a doctrine, which if 
true would disgrace the benevolent author of our 
being," " ascribes a character to God which no 
language can express — which, indeed, for innate 
and unprovoked cruelty infinitely surpasses the 
loftiest powers of imagination," and " repre- 
sents God as sustaining a character compared 
with which that of Nero is excellence." Now 
we confess that we have used such language as 
the above, and only regret that we have not 
been able to express more strongly what we feel. 
The dogma of endless torments is no common 
place theme, and he who speaks tamely upon it, 
either does not feel as he ought, or has no words 
to express what struggles within him. And it 
seems to us strange beyond all conception, that 
the advocates of this doctrine can speak upon it, 
maintain, defend, preach it, and above all think 
their families, their friends, their race, yea even 
themselves exposed every moment to it, and yet 
talk of it as calmly, as indifferently, as if it 



56 review of Hatfield's 

concerned no human being, affected no interest 
in the universe. Whence this insensibility? — 
Whence but in the hardening nature of the doc- 
trine itself? 

But if any one thinks we have spoken harsh- 
ly of this horrible dogma let him read the follow- 
ing representation of it from a devout believer 
both in its truth and its moral efficacy. We 
mean Drexelius, from whose " Considerations 
upon Eternity," we here copy : 

" If all the severest and most barbarous tortures, 
Which were ever invented by the tyrants of the earth, 
who by anxious thought and hellish contrivance, im- 
proved and refined the art of cruelty and brought it 
to perfection ; if these, 1 say, were to be heaped up- 
on the head of one man, and he were to endure them 
for a hundred years, yet they would not come near 
the pains of the damned even for one dav ; so fear- 
ful a thing it is to fall into the hands of the living God. 
The quickest and sorest punishments which in all 
ages have been inflicted upon thieves, parricides and 
other malefactors, are seldom known to have lasted 
above three or four days, or a week at farthest ; but 
the torments of those who lie wailing under the ven- 
geance ofa powei} armed with Omnipotence, are not 
for a year or an age, but for an interminable duration ; 
God will always punish them, and he can never tor- 
ment them enough, though their torments w r ill en- 
dure to all eternity " 

Let this quotation be carefully read again ; and 
then answer us if we deserve to be condemned 
for speaking honestly and strongly on the sub- 
ject of endless torments. Shall we stand by and 
hear our heavenly Father thus calumniated, bias- 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 57 

phemed, and not lift our voices in honest indig- 
nation against the foul slander ? Shall we pa- 
tiently hear him represented as infinitely more 
barbarous and cruel than all the tyrants that 
ever disgraced humanity ? Shall we allow his 
enemies or his avowed friends, unrebuked,to hold 
him up as transcendantly more worthy of our 
detestation than all the monsters in human form, 
the demons of wrath, that have stalked over our 
earth, and rilled their pathway with misery and 
blood 1 Shall we sit silently by while the tor- 
tures to be inflicted by God himself, in hell for 
ever, are described as surpassing, in one day,a.\\d. 
in one individual, all that tyrants, by M anxious 
thought and hellish contrivance," have been able 
to inflict during the whole history of our race ? 
Others may if they think it right ; but for our- 
selves, we say, when we do, may our right hand 
forget her cunning, and our tongue cleave to the 
roof of our mouth. No, by all that is sacred and 
dear, we will speak on this subject as long as we 
can speak at all ; we will maintain that God is 
good, the Father of the spirits of air flesh, the 
God of all grace, the God of Love. We will 
proclaim such doctrines as are inculcated in the 
paragraph quoted above, to be false, immoral, 
blasphemous. We care not who preaches them 
or who believes them. We take our stand upon 
the word of God, and fearlessly pronounce them 
as false as the hell of which they treat. The ad- 

5* 



58 

vocates of such dogmas may boast of their learn- 
ing, their fiety, their love ; but we advise them 
to learn to speak of Him who only is good, in a 
manner more befiting his character. What 
would Americans think if men were to speak of 
Washington as the professed ministers of Christ 
speak of God % What would the affectionate 
child think, if he were to hear the character of 
his earthly father traduced as many habitually 
traduce the character of the great God and Fa- 
ther of us all ? 

It may seem to our author bold, and wanting 
in modesty, for us to speak thus. Be it so. — 
Though we have no great confidence in our- 
selves, we have great confidence in God and 
God's truth, and we shall not hesitate to speak 
on this subject with boldness even in the pres- 
ence of the superior learning, wisdom, and piety 
of self-complaisant, self-styled, but false and 
God-dishonoring, orthodoxy. 

That " all mankind will eventually become 
holy and happy," is, according to our accurate 
and truthful author, the first article in the Uni- 
versalist " system." " Such," says he, u is the 
beginning and end of all their writings." This, 
let us remark, is just as true as that the doctrine 
of endless torments is the chief article of the 
orthodox faith, the beginning and end of all their 
writings. And it furnishes a beautiful illustra- 
tion of the christian candor of him with whom 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 59 

we have to do, and of his moral fitness for the 
work of portraying " Universalism as it is." As 
Universalists themselves are accustomed to con- 
template their own faith, the doctrine of the 
final salvation of all men, is the remit of their 
system, the grand consummation of the divine 
plan, and not, as our author falsely represents it 
the first article of their belief. And this our author 
knew ! Why then did he not faithfully represent 
the subject thus in his text-book 1* 

We should naturally expect that a doctrine so 
important as our author represents that of uni- 
versal salvation to be with us, would occupy, in 
no inconsiderable degree, the attention of one 
who should attempt to give to the world a de- 
lineation of " Universalism as it is." To state, 
what every man of common intelligence must 
be supposed to know already, that Universalists 
believe in the salvation of all mankind, is little 
to the purpose. The public, if it needs to be 
made acquainted with any thing more than it 
already knows, should be informed with respect 

* " The text-book of Modern Universalism," says Mr. 
Hatfield, "is 'a Treatise on the Atonement/ by Hosea Bal- 
lou." This will certainly be news to our Universalist rea- 
ders. But granting our author's statement to be true, 
what was the necessity for "a Text-Book of Modern Uni- 
versalism," by Rev. E. F. Hatfield? It had been antici- 
pated thirty or forty years by a work written by an ac- 
knowledged and well known Universalist, and sold at half 
the price of the " text-book" before us. But Mr. H. was 
was not unmindful of " the recompense of reward." 



60 review of hatfield's 

to the place this doctrine occupies in our faith, 
the importance we attach to it, the grounds on 
which we predicate and defend it, etc. etc. But 
he who consults the " text-book" of our author, 
will be wholly disappointed in his reasonable ex- 
pectations on this subject. Whether the pastor 
of the Seventh Presbyterian Church really knew 
nothing on the point, or whether it did not con- 
sist with his design to tell what he knew, our 
readers can judge as well as we. That we be- 
lieve in the ultimate holiness and happiness of 
all mankind he has asserted, and proved most 
incontrovertibly, too, by the testimony of Hosea 
Ballou and Thomas Whittemore ! Let his read- 
ers thank him for this important information. 
True, after revealing to his brethren this as- 
tonishing piece of intelligence, he adds, u at 
what time this anticipated result will take place, 
does not fully appear. All however agree in the 
belief that it will not be delayed beyond the re- 
surrection. . . . But how long a time will elapse 
before the resurrection they do not pretend to 
say." Hear that, ye " students in theology," 
and our author's " brethren in the ministry," 
and wonder at the immense and " heart sicken- 
ing" labor which he must have undergone to 
have brought forth such marvels as these ! — 
Should they wish any further information on the 
subject, they may refer to our Savior's language, 
Matt. xxii. 30, Luke xx. 36, and to that of 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 61 

St. Paul, 1 Cor. xv. where the views of Univer- 
salists are very fully expressed. 

" The reader, however," says our author, p. 
40, " who has not made himself familiar with 
this crafty system, will, doubtless, be ready to 
ask, how do these preachers dispose of the nu- 
merous passages which affirm the everlasting 
punishment of those who die in their sins ?" — 
Very true : and our readers who are not familiar 
with our crafty author will also be ready to ask, 
how does he answer this question ? This easy 
task he accomplishes with singular facility in 
the space of a little more than four 12mo. pages ! 

" In the first place, then," says he, "they 
maintain that the Old Testament says little or 
nothing of a future immortal state" This is 
proved by five lines from " the younger Ballou," 
who says that " the future state of existence was 
not clearly revealed till the time of our Savior," 
and that " the view's which the Old Testament 
had afforded of this most interesting subject are 
faint and indistinct, like a prospect amid the ob- 
scurity of night." The heresy, not to say infi- 
delity, which the keen scent of our erudite au- 
thor seems to detect in these lines, tempts us to 
quote a short paragraph from Professor Stuart's 
Exegtical Essays, p. 122, who says, "that to rep- 
resent the Old Testament as determining the 
future state either of the righteous or of the wick- 
ed with the same clearness ox fullness as the New 



62 review of hatfield's 

Testament does, savors either of prejudice, or of 
an imperfect acquaintance with the Jewish sacred 
Records. Where is the specific difference between 
the future state of the righteous and the wicked 
fully set forth in the Hebrew Scriptures % Where 
are the separate abodes in Shcol for each, par- 
ticularly described ? I know not ; nor do I be- 
lieve any one can inform me. In the New 
Testament all is clear. ' Life and immortality 
are brought to light by the gospel.' " Let this 
suffice on this point. If our author wishes to 
dispute the question whether " the younger B il- 
lou" misstated the fact in relation to the Old 
Testament we respectfully refer him to Profes- 
sor Stuart, and could, if necessary, introduce to 
his acquaintance many other eminent orthodox 
authorities to the same purpose. What is un- 
fortunate ftir our author is, that Prof. Stuart 
himself thinks the Old Testament doctrine of the 
future state so exceedingly dark that the specific 
difference between the condition of the righte- 
ous and the wicked is no where fully set forth, 
nor their separate abodes in Sheol particularly 
described. 

But this is not the worst of the case. The 
Universalists not only agrre with Prof. Stuart, 
and many other most eminent orthodox divines 
on this subject, but they also maintain that the 
doctrine of future rewards and punishment s y 
makes no part of the Mosaic religion ! The re- 



UNIVERSALIS!*! AS IT IS. 63 

suit, if this position can be sustained, is very 
obvious. It leaves the people of God for four 
thousand years without the rc.oral doctrine of 
endless torments. That the Universalists enter- 
tain this view of the subject is proved by several 
quotations from their writers, who contend that 
temporal sanctions were the only sanctions made 
known to the Jews. 

" But why not quote Heb. xi. as in point V 9 in- 
quires our discriminating author. In point of 
what ? we inquire in return. Our author seems 
to have confounded two very different questions. 
Whether the Old Testament clearly reveals a fu- 
ture state, is one question, and upon this Heb. 
xi. has some bearing : but whether the doctrine 
of future rewards and punishments is taught in 
the Old Testament, is another question quite dis- 
tinct from the former, and to which the chapter 
before referred to, does not apply at all. It is 
very obvious that if a future state was not clearly 
revealed in the Jewish Scriptures, the doctrine 
of future rewards and punishments could not be. 
At the same time, it is easy to see, that future 
rewards and punishments do not necessarily 
follow a clear revelation of a future state. The 
truth of the latter does not involve the truth of 
the former. 

Altogether overlooking this rather obvious 
distinction our author enjoys a complete triumph 
over Universalists, by convicting them of great in- 



64 REVIEW OF HATFIELD'S 

consistency. " Now it happens," says he, pp. 
41,42, "very unfortunately for these innova- 
tors, that some of their most important proof 
texts are derived from the Old Testament, e. g. 
Gen. xxii. 18. To be consistent they must admit 
that here is no hint of future rewards, except 
in this world. The same must be admitted of 
Ps. xxii. 27, Isa. xxv. 8. Before appealing to 
these again, I would advise them, first to settle 
the question, whether or not the Old Testament 
sheds any light on the immortal state ; and if so, 
how much." 

Thanks, gentle brother, for this clear-sighted 
advice. But indulge us in two remarks. In the 
first place, Universalists have not been accus- 
tomed to regard Gen. xxii. 18, or any other pas- 
sages of either the Old Testament or the New, 
as promising immortal happiness in the form of 
reward for man's good works ! They have been 
taught to contemplate this unspeakable blessing 
as the pure gift of God, and to thank him for 
it. They are, therefore, consistent enough to ad- 
mit that in the passages referred to there is " no 
hint of future rewards" ; and farther, if our 
author had known as much of Universalism as 
he professes to know, he would not have betray- 
ed himself by thus attempting to involve them 
in the charge of inconsistency. 

But secondly : We conceive that Gen. xxii. 
18, may furnish very clear proof of Universalism 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 65 

without our maintaining that the Old Testament 
clearly reveals a future state. When God said, 
" The seed of the woman shall bruise the ser- 
pents head," and also when he said to Abra- 
ham, " In thy seed shall all the nations of the 
earth be blessed, " it is not necessary to suppose 
that all the truth which these divine declarations 
really contain, and which they are now seen to 
contain, was fully revealed and of course clear- 
ly understood by those to whom they were made. 
They were the germs of all prophecy relating to 
the blessed Messiah ; and the truth which they 
infolded was gradually developed, till finally, 
the promised seed appeared on earth. By him, 
in person, was life and immortality brought to 
light, and many mysteries, which had been hid 
from ages and from generations, were now fully 
and gloriously made known. Of the truth of 
this, no professed minister of Christ should need 
proof. We know how dull the apostles were to 
comprehend many things, taught as they seem 
to us with peculiar clearness, by the Savior 
himself. Is it unreasonable, then, to suppose 
that Adam and Abraham, and those of after- 
times, were in a manner incapable of fully un- 
derstanding all that God's promises involved ? 
The light of the New Testament is reflected 
back upon the teachings of the Old, and much 
that was dark under Moses and the prophets, is 
now radiant as the day. But be this as it may, 

6 



66 review or hatfield's 

one fact is quite clear, viz, that " future rewards 
and punishments" had no place among the doc- 
trines of the Old Testament. Or if they had, no one 
has hitherto succeeded in discovering them ; while 
many of the most distinguished theologians* have 
explicitly denied that they constitute any part of 
the sanctions of the Mosaic law, and many oth- 
ers express themselves in great doubt on the sub- 
ject. Among the former are such names as 
Grotius, Episcopius, Bp. Bull, Bp. Warbuton, 
Dr. Campbell, Dr. Paley, the younger Arnauld, 
etc., while among the latter may be found Dr. 
Jahn, T. Hartwell Home, Bp. Burnet, etc. — 
Even Prof. Stuart does not affirm any thing more 
than " that the Hebrews did probably, in some 
cases, connect with the use of this word (Sheol) 
the idea of misery subsequent to the death of the 
body." To aver more than this feebly express- 
ed probability, he concedes "would be some- 
what hazardous." Our readers can now judge 
whether "American Universalists" are sinners 
above all men, in maintaining, that the doctrine 
of a future state was not clearly revealed, and 
that of future rewards and punishments not re- 
vealed at all in the Old Testament. Let us pass 
then to the consideration of the New. 

11 But the New Testament," says our author, 
44 is not liable to this objection. There, confess- 
edly, 4 life and immortality' are brought to light." 
Here our author again quotes eight lines from 

* Sae Note B. 



UN1VERSALISM AS IT IS. 67 

" theyounger Ballou," who says that " most of it 
(the N. Test.) was written under the very shadow 
of an impending judgment, which was about 
to sweep the holy city, the Mosaic system of 
worship, and a lar^e part of the Jewish nation 
from the face of the earth, and to scatter the 
broken remnant in everlasting dispersion" ; and 
suggests that, " a recollection of these facts 
will prepare the reader to trace the reference of 
many passages in the gospels and epistles, which 
would otherwise be dark and perplexing." 

Upon this our candid author exclaims, u Who 
can not see, in the light of this new luminary, 
that every threatening in the New Testament 
which seems to look to a future world, must have 
had its fulfilment in the destruction of Jerusa- 
lem ? These new interpreters affirm it, and it 
would be very impolite to call in question their 
infallibility. ,, The candor of these remarks, 
and the clear exposition of the Universalist 
method of interpreting certain passages of Scrip- 
ture, which they furnish, can not but commend 
themselves to attention and favor. But is it then a 
matter of no consequence with our author, under 
what circumstances an ancient writing, which is 
to be interpreted, was composed ? Is this one of 
the rules which he was taught at Andover ? — 
That the foretold destruction of Jerusalem, fore- 
told by the Savior himself as an event which 
was to transpire during the generation in which 



68 review of hatfield's 

he lived, and to be accompanied with scenes of 
suffering and wretchedness unparalleled in the 
annals of the world, — an event the mere thought 
of which made the Son of God weep like a child 
— that such a destruction, so wide-spread, so al- 
most, total, in which the christians were in so 
many ways interested, should have frequently 
engaged the thoughts of the early ministers of 
Christ, and found its place in their writings, in 
warnings, exhortations, etc. can seem singular 
to no one, we should hope, but our author. If 
Universalists misinterpret the Scriptures from 
the consideration of such facts as this, there is 
certainly " learning and intelligence" enough 
among their opposers to correct and refute them. 
Our author, however, seems fully to understand, 
that it is much easier to laugh down such inter- 
pretations, or at least to make the attempt, than 
like a scholar and christian to expose the falsity 
of the principle on which they rest, or the errors 
which they involve. The latter he knows he 
can not do ; the former, it requires neither learn- 
ing nor candor to try. 

But our author is not yet fully satisfied. He 
is exceedingly anxious to convict Universalists of 
denying the authority of some part of the Scrip- 
tures, and he fixes upon the Apocalypse for this 
commendable purpose. To this end he proves 
us guilty of having said that, " it may well be 
doubted if any part of the Apocalypse relates to 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 69 

the future and eternal world" — a remark found- 
ed on such mean authority as Eichhorn, Hug, 
Prof. Stuart and Dr. Ed. Robinson ; that some 
of us have been bad enough to confess, with 
such men as Dr. Whitby, Di\ Adam Clarke and 
many others,* that to us the book is obscure and 
" we do not understand it"; and that in the 
present state of its interpretation we do not think 
it should be urged with great confidence in the 
establishment of such a doctrine as that of endless 
misery ; and finally that one man in the denomi- 
nation agrees with Dr. Lardner in thinking that 
M it ought not to be brought forward as sufficient 
authority to establish any doctrine." Besides 
these very grave charges our author insinuates 
that we are guilty of heresy in believing with 
such names as Grotius, Dr. Hammond, Sir T. 
Newton, Bp. Newton, Wetstein, Eichhorn, Prof. 
Stuart and Dr. Ed. Robinson that the Apoca- 
lypse was written before the destruction of Je- 
rusalem ! Whether our author exhibits the more 
malice or ignorance in all this we shall leave our 
readers to judge ; but after such a catalogue of 
sins charged home upon the Universalists, it is 
a specimen of his christian charity to indulge in 
such gentle and just remarks as the following : 
11 The easiest way to dispose of some of its fear- 
ful language is undoubtedly to deny its authori- 

* Scaliger said that " Calvin was wise because he did not 
write upon the Revelation." 

6* 



70 REVIEW OF HATFIELD'S 

ty." And he goes on to speak of our " throw- 
ing away the Old Testament" ; of our believing 
that " the Apocalypse is no authority at all," 
and our regarding the Bible as, " at best, a mere 
Jewish affair, of but little use to the world since 
the end of the Hebrew commonwealth, save as a 
history of interesting events," and closes his ti- 
rade by inquiring what we can deserve at the 
hands of our race but 

" The praises of the libertine confessed, 
The worst of men, and curses of the best !" 

Upon such a graceless procedure we shall offer 
no remarks. To call it mean, base, contempti- 
ble, beneath the dignity of any man, but the 
professed falsifier and blackguard, would but 
feebly express the despicable character of so 
perverse and wicked a misrepresentation. Mr. 
Hatfield knows that the whole idea which his 
language was designed to convey is false, length 
and breadth. He knows that we neither throw 
away the Old Testament nor deny the authori- 
ty of the Apocalypse. We adopt the Scipture 
canon as it is maintained by the most learned 
and valuable orthodox authorities. That the 
Old Testament does not make a clear revelation 
of the future state, and that it contains no hint 
of future rewards and punishments is not our 
fault, if it be a fault at all. Nor can we 
now prevent the Apocalypse from having been 
written before Jerusalem was destroyed by the 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 71 

Romans, nor even from being obscure and of 
doubtful interpretation ! In like manner it is 
not in our power to make " the numerous pas- 
sages" in the New Testament, of which our 
author speaks, teach the doctrine of endless 
torments ! They seem to have been employed 
for a very different purpose by Him who first 
uttered them and gave them their meaning. It 
is not our business to make the Bible something 
else than what it is, but we shall have done our 
duty when, by patient and prayerful study, we 
understand its doctrines, and live in accordance 
with its requirements and spirit. And we can 
not but recommend certain parts of its divine 
teachings to the renewed consideration of our 
author. It contains many excellent lessons on 
the subject of speaking the truth, which we fear 
he has sadly neglected, and the influence of 
which neglect has almost utterly destroyed the 
value of his " Text-Book of Modern Universal- 
ism." 

We now pass to consider what our author 
says of the penalty of sin — a subject that vital- 
ly affects the whole controversy between us and 
our opposers. He correctly states our views on 
this point, so far as our denial of an infinite 
penalty is concerned, and so far as we maintain 
that the penalty is and must be limited. Nor 
does he very manfully attempt a refutation of 
our views, or a defence of church orthodoxy — 



72 REVIEW OF HATFIELD'S 

The method he adopts is a much easier one. 
He arrays us in opposition to the belief of all 
past times, and with a few contemptuous excla- 
mations leaves us to the condemnation of those 
for whom he wrote ! 

" The attempt," he says, "is made unblush- 
ingly to unsettle the foundations of ages. Eve- 
ry scheme of doctrine, heretofore received as 
taught in the Bible, both conceded and was 
based on, the supposition or belief that endless 
punishment was the proper penalty of transgres- 
sion." Let us for a moment allow all this, and 
would it necessarily follow that Universalism is, 
in this respect, false? Must an opinion that has 
been generally adopted for ages be true ? Or 
ought a man to blush for calling in question what 
others have commonly believed 1 But suppose 
for a moment that this time-worn and venerable 
opinion is Jalse, absurd; and that our fathers 
believed it, not because they perceived or could 
establish its truth, but because their fathers had 
believed it before them. Does it become our 
duty to hand down the falsehood to posterity ? 
This may be in accordance with Old Schoolism 
which is pledged to see all things with the eyes 
of past generations ; but our author, we are 
sure, would not maintain such a principle. Be- 
sides, if we are to adopt it, will he allow us to 
inquire how we differ from the most ignorant 
Catholic in the land, and of what possible utility 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 73 

the Bible can be to any man who thus acts. We 
are in such a case thrown entirely on the au- 
thority of tradition to the total exclusion of the 
word of God. However our author may regard 
the subject, we confess that we do not see the 
reasonableness of believing a falsehood, or 
adopting an error, merely because it has been 
generally believed and adopted ; and if there 
be any one to blush in this case we are of opin- 
ion it is he who thinks it a crime to dissent 
from an old and worm-eaten error. 

But does our author discriminate clearly in 
his representation of this subject. He who 
maintains that " endless punishment is the pro- 
per penalty of transgression," adopts the prin- 
ciple that every sin, however small compara- 
tively, is still to be punished endlessly with all 
the horrible tortures of hell ! ! This was the 
old doctrine. It is found in the Westminster 
Confession, in the Saybrook Platform, and the 
Confession of the Presbyterian Church. It was 
formerly defended in this mathematical way. 
God is infinite ; God's law therefore must be an 
infinite law ; and none but an infinite penalty 
can sustain a law that is infinite ; but what can 
save a transgressor from suffering an infinite 
penalty but an infinite atonement ? and who 
can make an infinite atonement but God % 
Therefore Jesus Christ is the Supreme God. 
This constituted the whole cycle of old ortho- 



74 review of Hatfield's 

doxy. But as our author says, " the attempt is 
unblushingly made to unsettle the foundations 
of ages !" Men in modern times have grown 
sceptical in respect to this chain of infinities ; 
they have doubted whether the divine law given 
to man is necessarily infinite, simply because 
God ordained it. But if the law is not infinite, 
can we suppose a violation of it to be so ? 

Be this as it may, our author cannot be ig- 
norant that the doctrine of endless misery is 
now maintained on grounds widely different from 
those of old. Men will suffer such a punish- 
ment, it is said, not because sin is infinite, but 
because they will continue to sin forever. It is 
thus President Dwight reasons. " God may 
justly punish sin," he says, "so long as it exists, 
and it may exist forever. He who sins through 
this life, may evidently sin through another such 
period, and another, and another, without end." 
In the same way does Dr. Beecher, and Dr. 
Parker, and Dr. Brownlee, and the American 
Tract Society speak. They all defend endless 
punishment not on the ground that one sin de- 
serves such a doom, but that the sinner can be 
justly punished because he will sin on world 
without end. And what is more to our purpose, 
our author himself believes the same thing, 
takes the same view, unless w r e have misunder- 
stood him ! Dr. Beecher, once spoke in a ser- 
mon against Universalism in this manner : 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 75 

" The Bible says not a word about punishing 
men forever for the evils of this life." 

Now these are the views of Universalists. 
They say in the language of Tract No. 224 — 
" Sinners will deserve to be punished as long 
as they continue to sin." And so generally do 
our orthodox opposers agree with us on this 
subject, that the controversy between us com- 
monly turns, not on the question whether sin 
deserves an endless punishment, that is, wheth- 
er one single offence of the least malignant 
character that we can conceive, will call down 
the wrath of God forever, but whether man 
will actually continue to sin, and therefore de- 
serve punishment forever. 

This distinction is so manifest, that we can- 
not but express our surprise that our intelligent 
and learned author should not have perceived 
it. As it is, his condemnation of Universalists 
unfortunately falls equally upon many of the 
best divines in our country, and what is pecu- 
liarly unhappy, upon himself also ! He no more 
believes that sin is an infinite evil, or that it 
deserves an unlimited punishment than we do. 
True, he carps much at our thinking that end- 
less misery, as the penalty of God's law, is un- 
reasonable, and sneers, as is his custom, at our 
want of modesty, and our presumption in ex- 
pressing our thorough convictions on the sub- 
ject. All this is in perfect keeping with our 



76 review of hatfield's 

author's character, and with the school of which 
he is such an ornament. For while he convicts 
us of the greatest presumption and want of 
modesty, " shamefully illiterate" as we are, he 
constantly holds himself up as the master of 
reason and Scripture, who is privileged to in- 
dulge in the most unsparing condemnation, 
ridicule, and abuse of those who are so unfortu- 
nate as to differ from him. 

By what process of transition our erudite and 
thoughtful author passes from the consideration 
of the penalty of sin to an exposition of our views 
respecting God's gifts and calling, we confess 
ourselves unable to perceive. But charging us 
over and over with making sin " a very trifling 
evil," he goes on to say, that " it follows of 
course from this view of the penalty of sin, or 
the curse of the law, that eternal life, or end- 
less happiness, never has been forfeited by sin. 
No amount of guilt can deprive a human being 
of this inheritance." 

It is somewhat difficult, we confess to under- 
stand the sequence of this course of argument, 
but supposing it to be clear to those who rank 
among " the intelligent and the learned," we 
remark, that it is still more difficult to compre- 
hend how one can forfeit an inheritance that 
he never possessed. For our clear-sighted au- 
thor goes on in the next paragraph to say, " It 
will doubtless occur to the reader that the Savior 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 77 

addressed his hearers in a manner that seemed 
to imply that they were destitute of any good 
liope of eternal life. Nothing was more fre- 
quently on his lips than the offer of everlasting 
life to those who would become his followers. 
Nicodemus was told that ' whosoever believeth 
in him should not perish, but have everlasting 
life/ i. e. should have this everlasting life as a 
reward of his faith.' 9 

It will be acknowledged that the terms offer- 
ed by the Savior in this proposed bargain, w r ere 
very generous. No one could ask a better com- 
pensation for so moderate a service. Now this 
offer, as our author calls it, is a very clear proof 
of the heresy of Universalism. " For/' says he, 
4i how could the Savior make such an offer and 
propose it as a reward of his service, if those to 
whom he spoke were already possessed of end- 
less happiness, or if they had never forfeited it 
by sin ? That this eternal life had been for- 
feited, appears to have been the understanding 
of those who heard him. The young ruler ask- 
ed, ' Good Master ! what shall I do that I may 
inherit (procure) eternal life V " 

All this is, no doubt, very clear and conclu- 
sive; and yet,owing perhaps to our illiterateness^ 
we must confess, that we have not so " learned 
Christ" We read that we are not saved by 
works, lest men should boast, but by the grace 
of God. But, according to our author, Moses 

7 



78 REVIEW OF HATFIELD** 

offered everlasting life, as truly as our Savior, 
and on precisely the same terms. " If thou 
wilt enter into life," said our Lord, " keep the 
commandments." This circumstance might 
lead any one but the pastor of the Seventh Pres- 
byterian Church to suspect that our Savior was 
speaking, not of immortal blessedness, but of 
the " life" which Moses had set before the peo- 
ple of Israel, and which they were to possess 
while they obeyed his laws. 

Our author makes himself merry at the won- 
derful simplicity of the Universalist scheme, 
which does not admit the existence of an infi- 
nite penalty, and he cannot suppress his aston- 
ishment that the angels are said to desire to 
look into it. But his own plan of salvation is 
far more simple than ours. It is a very busi- 
ness-like transaction, understood by all men — 
so much for so much. If men will do a certain 
amount of service for God, God will pay them 
so and so, according to contract ! The object 
of our Savior r s mission was to make this offer ! 
And so the Jews understood the business. Hence 
the young ruler come to Jesus to inquire into 
the terms of salvation which he was proposing 
to the world. He wished to know how much 
he must do to "procure" eternal life ! 

But will our author inform us whether this is 
Presbyterianism, and if so, in what part of the 
Confession of Faith we may find it taught ? — 



UNI VERS ALISM AS IT IS. 79 

Where has Calvin exhibited such a simple 
scheme of salvation 1 We have never met with 
it in his writings. Nay, where is it presented 
in the Bible ? The Pastor of the Seventh Pres- 
byterian Church affirms that "nothing was more 
frequently on the Savior's lips." Will he refer 
to the passages where Christ makes an offer of 
immortal felicity as the reward for our services 
here in this world ? 

But does our author, then, deny that salva- 
tion is by grace? So we should be justified in 
inferring ; for the apostle teaches, too plainly 
to be misunderstood, that " if it be by grace, 
then it is no more of works, and if by works 
then it is no more of grace," and in another 
passage that "to him that worketh is the re- 
ward not reckoned of grace, but of debt." It is 
very obvious, therefore, that however heretical 
Universalists may be, our author stands in di- 
rect opposition to St. Paul. 

If our author demurs to this conclusion, and 
maintains that we are saved by grace, then it is 
a problem for him to solve how this salvation 
can be forfeited. The shallow scheme which 
he seems to have adopted, goes on this hypoth- 
esis, that man was created the heir of everlast- 
ing life or endless happiness, but by Adam's 
sin this was forfeited. Or in the words of that 
veracious writer, the author of the Wisdom of 
Solomon, " God made man immortal and the 



80 REVIEW OF HATTIELD r 5 

image of his own eternity, but by the envy of 
the devil death carne into the world." Now if 
man was made immortal, it would gratify us 
much to know by what process he could become 
mortal. This our author does not stop to ex- 
plain. In the higher light of his "learning and 
intelligence," it is probably as clear as day. — 
But when Adam destroyed the immortality that 
God had bestowed on him, he involved his 
whole posterity in the condemnation. Hence,, 
says our author, " If, now, those who obtain 
eternal life through Christ, would but for him 
have been destitute of it — and nothing is more 
clearly taught in the Bible — it follows inevita- 
bly that their portion would have been eternal 
death; and that this is the portion of all by na- 
ture ; eternal life is equivalent to endless bliss ? 
and consequently eternal death can mean noth- 
ing more nor less than endless misery. But if 
man ' never was exposed to any such calamity/ 
how could the Redeemer promise to save men 
from it by the gift of endless life I- 1 

True : but where does he promise to save men 
from endless ?nisery ? We have read the New 
Testament with some care, and have never yet 
found any such promise; our author would, 
therefore, confer a great favor by referring us 
to those passages of Scripture which contain 
this promise. 

Our author should know, that it vet remains 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 81 

to be proved that man was created immortal 
and put in possession of " endless bliss." When 
this is once done, it will be time enough to dis- 
cuss the question whether such an inheritance 
has been forfeited. As we read and understand 
the Bible, eternal life, or " endless bliss," as 
our author calls it,is given to man by the grace 
of God through Jesus Christ. It had never 
been forfeited, for the simple reason, that it had 
never been possessed. Man had sinned and 
come short of the glory of God, and yet the 
changeless love of the Father regarded him 
with infinite compassion, and the blessed Son 
was sent forth, not to make offers of reconcilia- 
tion, and to promise everlasting life as a reward 
of human works, but to manifest the grace of 
God, to commend God's love to sinners, and to 
bring life and immortality to light. God loved 
the world, though sinful, and it was this love 
that prompted the plan of saving man from his 
sins — not, as our author talks,from eternal death 
— and of opening before him an immortality in 
which he might attain the true end of his being, 
which, as our author's catechism should have 
taught him before this, is "to glorify God and 
enjoy him for ever" Whether this gift of God 
depends on man, whether man can obtain it by 
his good works, or forfeit it by neglect or diso- 
bedience, ought not to be a question with a pro- 
fessed disciple of Calvin, or a son of the Presby- 

7* 



82 REVIEW OF HATFIELD r S 

terian Church ! That men can and do disbe- 
lieve the grace of God and the gift of that grace, 
is very true. But is it a fact that our disbeliev- 
ing the goodness of God, either makes God 
evil, or causes him to cease to be good % This 
will hardly be pretended by any man in the 
possession of his faculties. Let it be supposed^ 
then, that God has given man eternal life in Je- 
sus Christ, and is it to be presumed that this 
act of God, which is represented as having been 
done before the foundation of the world, is still 
made to depend for its reality and efficacy on 
man himself? But what is more, this very 
grace is made the object of human faith. Now 
according to our author there is no such object 
in the gospel. God has done nothing, Christ 
has done nothing, but simply to make an offer 
.of everlasting life. If men will accept this offer 
they will be saved ; if not, they are consigned 
to hell-fire for ever. It was not thus that Christ 
taught, and the apostles preached. Their doc- 
trine was, that light had come into tlie world, not 
a mere offer of light ; tuat God hath given us 
eternal life and this life is in his Son. If men 
love darkness, they shall suffer condemnation, 
because they do not believe the love that God 
hath to them. If they will not receive the tes- 
timony of God, if they reject the record that 
God gave of his Son, they make God a liar, i. e. 
they think of him and represent him as not be- 



UNIVERSALIS*! AS IT 13. 83 

ing what he is, as not having done what he has. 
Wnat then, shall their unbelief make the faith- 
fulness of God of none effect? God forbid. — 
No, they may deny him, but he can not deny 
himself. That he has given to man eternal life, 
and that this life is in his Son, is still true and 
will remain true to all eternity. To suppose 
that man can forfeit a life thus given and secur- 
ed, is but to suppose that he can thwart the 
most gracious plans of Jehovah, and defeat the 
highest purposes of his love for ever : a suppo- 
sition which no christian should feel at liberty 
to make, and which the Scriptures plainly for- 
bid. 

" It is manifest, that it must be admitted," 
says our author, -" that the penalty of sin from 
which Chiist came to save men, was endless 
misery, unless it can be shown that ' everlast- 
ing life' is not endless life. But what is too hard 
for a Universalist ?" Here our author is labor- 
ing under two trifling calamities ; a gross as- 
sumption which is quite incapable of the slight- 
est proof, and an egregious fallacy. The falla- 
cy consists in maintaining that if Christ has re- 
vealed, or if God has given to man, endless 
life, man must have been liable before to end- 
less misery : which is just as true as that John 
Tyler, if, by the good will of the people, he has 
been raised to the highest station in the 
country, must have been before, the most ab« 



84 review of Hatfield's 

ject slave, or the most degraded and criminal 
state-prisoner in the Union ! ! The logic in one 
case is of the same kind as in the other, and the 
conclusions are equally groundless and absurd. 
Is it not possible for our author to conceive of 
God giving endless life to any but beings whom 
he ought in justice to torment, world without 
end 1 He should, at least, be aware that while 
" life and immortality are brought to light by 
the gospel," it is very far from being clearly re- 
vealed that endless misery makes any part of 
the divine plan. 

But did not Christ come to save men from 
the penalty of sin 1 So says our author, and so 
thousands, as wise as he, have said before him. 
But is it true ? Where is the authority for such 
an assertion ] Not in the Bible, certainly. — 
That says not a word, drops not a lisp, of such 
an object in the Savior's mission. The Bible 
teaches constantly, and in the most explicit 
terms, that God regards every man accord- 
ing to his works ; how then can he approve of 
any means to screen men from such an equita- 
ble reward 1 

But further; the object of our Savior's mis- 
sion is distinctly stated to be, not Xo save man 
from the penalty of sin, but from sin itself. — 
11 Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he sha 1 .! 
save his people from their sins." So the apos- 
tle speaks of his redeeming them from their in- 



UNI VERBALISM AS IT IS. 85 

iquities. This is the uniform language of Scrip- 
ture ; and besides, we have the declaration of 
God himself that he " will by no means clear 
the guilty," but that " he that doeth wrong 
shall receive for the wrong which he hath done, 
and there is no respect of persons." With such 
truths as these our author's assumption can 
never be harmonized. It stands out by itself, 
or rather stands connected with a man-made 
creed, which is opposed to the teachings and 
spirit of the Scriptures. 

After these remarks we might pass all that 
our author has said of Universalists denying 
" that the phrase - everlasting' or ' eternal life* 
relates to another world." But we must be in- 
dulged in a few observations. That the phrase 
in question does always mean what is synony- 
mous to " life and immortality," can, we think, 
be maintained by no one who will properly con- 
sider the passages where it occurs ; but that it 
is sometimes employed in that signification ap- 
pears quite probable. It is used in several in- 
stances to indicate something already possessed. 
The believer in the gospel is affirmed to have 
everlasting life, and the terms employed by the 
sacred writers to express this truth, are such as 
convey the idea of present possession. He is 
represented as being " passed from death unto 
life." In such cases, it must be a very forced 
and unnatural interpretation which makes 'ev» 



86 

erlasting life' to mean " life and immortality." 
In other cases everlasting life is mentioned as 
connected with the kingdom of heaven, or the 
Messiah's kingdom, and as one of its peculiar 
blessings, but then as something to be possess- 
ed and enjoyed here in this world. He who is 
resolved on believing that the word everlasting 
is properly and always equivalent to endless, and 
who can shut his eyes to a large class of facts 
hinted at above, can no doubt talk as does our 
author, and find learned merriment in the 
thought of Universalist ignorance and error. 

" There are," he says, " forty passages in 
the New Testament where this phrase is used. 
And these have usually been regarded as proof 
texts for the hope of heaven after death. In no 
other passages is the doctrine of endless bless- 
edness more clearly taught. Take these away, 
and what remains ? What else can endure the 
torture of this unsparing criticism?" All this 
sounds very well for assertion ; but does our 
author himself believe what he asserts 1 Is it 
a fact that " the doctrine of endless blessed- 
ness" is no where taught more clearly in the 
New Testament than in the phrase " everlast- 
ing life V % St. Paul, in 1 Cor. xv. has treated 
at some length on the resurrection-state and 
yet he has not once used this favorite expres- 
sion. Was the apostle aware what a proof- 
text of endless blessedness lie had omitted in 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 87 

this very important discourse ] Or did he flatter 
himself that he had used others that expressed 
his views with sufficient clearness and strength ? 
Whatever the author may think on the subject, 
it is a fact that the inspired writers found no 
difficulty in setting forth, without the aid of this 
phrase, the truths of revelation, with respect 
to a future state, and that were the forty in- 
stances in which it occurs " taken away," the 
doctrine of endless blessedness would still stand 
on the firmest and most unquestionable basis. 
When the apostle teaches that this corruptible 
must put on incorruption, arid this mortal must 
put on immortality, and that death shall be 
swallowed up in victory, and the question tri- 
umphantly asked, and sounded through the 
universe of God, " O, death, where is thy sting ] 
O, grave, where is thy victory ¥' we can not but 
think that he expressed the " endless blessed- 
ness" of the future state more strongly than a 
hundred repetitions of the phrase, " everlast- 
ing life," could have made it. 

Our author begins his next chapter, p. 61, 
with the following very reasonable observations. 
" The penalty of a law should manifestly bear 
some proportion to the evil of transgression. If 
sin be an evil of infinite magnitude, it can not 
be unjust for God to attach to his law the pen- 
alty of endless misery. But the Universalist 
denies that the penalty of the divine law is 



88 review of hatfield's 

misery without end. He must, therefore, show 
that sin is not as great an evil, as it has been 
commonly supposed, and that mankind deserve 
not an unlimited punishment." 

Here is good common sense ; although our 
author very adroitly throws upon the Univer- 
salist the burden of disproving an orthodox as- 
sumption ! It would be better, we suspect, for 
the advocate of infinite sin to establish that doc- 
trine if possible ; for if he fails in this the 
views of the Universalist on the subject are 
necessarily true. Sin is either finite or infinite, 
and he who maintains that it is infinite should 
be well assured of the ground on which he 
stands. To stimulate our author to some inqui- 
ries on this subject we will now say, that if he 
can prove that sin is an evil of infinite magni- 
tude, we, and the whole body of Universalists 
will abandon our system at once. We will stake 
the whole controversy on this single point. And 
it may not be out of place to say, in case he 
succeeds in convincing us here, we shall not 
only embrace the leading dogmas of ortho- 
doxy, but go beyond many of its doctrines, and 
carry out the principle thus adopted to its le- 
gitimate results. We will maintain, first, not 
only that endless misery is the penalty of the 
divine law, but that the punishment involved in 
this penalty is infinite in degree, as well as dura- 
tion. It is obvious that punishment merely 



f >IVERSALISM AS IT IS. 89 

endless, may still be limited in its severity, and 
consequently fall infinitely short of being pro- 
portioned to a sin of infinite magnitude. The 
punishment of hell, then, must be infinitely se- 
vere, as well as infinitely protracted. We re- 
commend this point to the particular attention 
of our author. 

But, secondly, we shall maintain, when thus 
convinced that sin is infinite, that the gospel of 
Jesus Christ is a fable, since it professes what is 
in the nature of things utterly impossible, and 
therefore absurd. The great doctrine of the 
gospel is that Christ came to put away sin by 
the sacrifice of himself. He was proclaimed 
the Lamb of God that taheth away the sin of the 
w r orld. Now if sin is infinite these great doc- 
trines of the gospel are false ; because, even if 
we concede that Christ is the infinite God, it is 
still true that sin is likewise infinite, and we hold 
it to be a clear truth that one infinite can never 
put away another. We have then just as much 
reason to believe that sin will put away God, as 
that God will put away sin. The truth is, two 
infinites thus in conflict with each other, must 
remain in conflict through eternity, and no 
mastery is possible on either side, simply be- 
cause they are equally infinite. Hence St. Paul 
is at once convicted of folly, or falsehood, for he 
has asserted that, " where sin abounded grace 
did much more abound." Now it is obvious 

8 



90 review of hatfield's 

that if sin is infinite, grace can be no more, and 
to assert that the latter super abounds, is to assert 
what is untrue. So when St. John assures his 
brethren that "greater is he that is in you, than 
he that is in them,' 7 viz. the world, he utters 
what is inconsistent with truth ; and when he de- 
clares that, " for this purpose the Son of God 
was manifested that he might destroy the works 
of the devil ;" and when the author of the He- 
brews still more boldly affirms that Christ " di- 
ed that through death he might destroy him that 
had the power of death, that is the devil, " they 
both testified to what is impossible and absurd. 
Nay the whole scheme of the gospel, is, on this 
hypothesis, Quixotic in the extreme, since it is 
the attempt of God, who is but infinite, to de- 
stroy sin, which is infinite also ! 

But this is not all. We shall further main- 
tain that the grand doctrine of Revelation, that 
there is but one God, "of whom, and through 
whom, and to whom are all things, " is also false. 
If sin is an evil of infinite magnitude, it must 
obviously rest at last on an infinite ground, and 
that ground,be it man or the devil, must be God ; 
that is, an infinite self subsistent being. Hence, 
instead of one Supreme God, we shall have two 
co-eternal and co-equal Gods, the moral oppo- 
sites of each other, and who must therefore be 
in eternal conflict. It is not the Bible, then, but 
the Zendavesta, the religious system of Zoroas- 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 91 

ter, which is true. With such a system the doc- 
trine of endless misery will stand in perfect har- 
mony. That God can not do his own will, can 
no longer seem unaccountable, for he is met at 
every turn by a being as mighty as himself, and 
an eternal foe to all good ! ! 

But we have not time fully to develope all the 
logical consequences which will follow upon the 
establishment of this simple doctrine, the infinity 
of sin. Those already suggested are sufficient, 
we trust, to indicate very clearly the system to 
which it belongs. It has no connexion with the 
religion of Moses or of Jesus. 

Our author spends no time to prove this im- 
portant doctrine. His purpose is attained when 
he has exhibited 'Universalismas it is, 'and shown 
that it denies sin to be infinite, and maintains 
that it is, on the contrary, finite and limited. — 
Still he seems to stake the interests of his cause 
upon the doctrine in question, and virtually to 
concede that if sin is not infinite, the doctrine of 
endless misery is indefensible. He does indeed 
glance at one of the old proof- texts, Job xxii. 5, 
" Is not thy wickedness great, and thine iniqui- 
ties infinite?." and says that Mr. Ballou " thinks 
these words not worthy of attention, because 
they ' are neither the words of God, nor of one 
whom he approved.' " From this, one is left to 
infer that, in the opinion of our author, the pas- 
sage does furnish good evidence of the doctrine 



92 review of Hatfield's 

in question. Perhaps, were he to consult the 
original, with which we suppose our learned 
friend familiar, he might have some reason to 
doubt whether Eliphaz spoke at all of the mag- 
nitude of sin in this favorite passage. The best 
commentators, we know, are so simple as to sup- 
pose that the inspired writer here spoke of sin 
not as being infinite in magnitude, but of Job's 
iniquities being exceedingly numerous ; infinite, 
popularly speaking, in number, that is, multipli- 
ed ! 

From the magnitude of the evil of sin our au- 
thor makes a sudden, and, as he thinks, a nat- 
ural transition to the Universalist views of man's 
moral condition at birth. As we do not believe 
Adam's sin to be infinite, he intimates that we 
" can not conceive of it as affecting his posteri- 
ty/' and hence that we maintain that, " Man- 
kind are born as pure as Adam was when he 
was created." This is proved by several authori- 
ties, among whom Abner Kneeland is distin- 
guished as one who " was an oracle indeed," 
but who has been "for some time past an avow- 
ed Atheist of the worst stamp." Right-minded 
readers will be apt to inquire, what necessity ex- 
isted for introducing the opinions of Mr. Knee- 
land on this or any other subject connected with 
11 Universalism as it is." Necessity there was 
obviously none, unless it was to gratify the piti- 
ful malignity which our author had neither the 



UNIVERSALIS!* AS IT IS. 93 

manliness to avow, nor the art to conceal. It 
was not because authorities were wanted, for af- 
ter wasting a whole page on the case of Mr. 
Kneeland, and quoting two or three other wri- 
ters, our high-minded author breaks out in the 
following eloquent and classical strain. u And 
so say they all. With no claim to originality, 
they scarcely ever pretend to strike out a new 
path for themselves. While they pretend to be 
the only ones who dare to think for themselves, 
they allow Messrs. Ballou, Balfour & Co., to do 
all their thinking for them. As these, their cap- 
tains lead, they follow, though often much be- 
yond their depth." We commend this to at- 
tention as a specimen at once of a christian 
spirit and fine writing. It is a gem of its kind ; 
but this is only one among the thousand similar 
beauties of the work before us. 

But what is the heresy of Universalists on the 
doctrine of " orignal sin or native depravity" ? 
That we differ from the opinions of creed-mak- 
ers must be confessed, but perhaps this is una- 
voidable if we will agree with the Scriptures. — 
Besides, our learned author can not be ignorant 
that on this subject very wide departures have 
been made from " the Standards," by that class 
of divines called New School men. 

The old doctrine was that Adam was created 
holy, but by his sin lost the image of God and 
involved his whole posterity in guilt, and sub- 

8* 



94 

jected them to God's wrath and curse ; so that 
now we are born into the world with a corrupt 
and sinful nature, which leads necessarily to 
sin, and without any actual transgression on our 
part merits endless damnation ! Universalists, 
on the other Hand, maintain that man now pos- 
sesses the same constitution, physical and mor- 
al, as was originally given to the progenitor of 
our race ; that as Adam was created in the im- 
age of God, so is man now ; and finally that 
children are born wholly innocent, free from sin 
and guilt, and capable alike, in the developement 
of their intellectual and moral powers, of obey- 
ing or disobeying God ; that is, equally capable 
of doing good or doing evil. 

That man is still formed in the image of God 
is clearly proved by the Scriptures, whatever our 
author or his creed may say to the contrary. — 
St. James, speaking of the tongue, says, "There- 
with bless we God, even the Father, and there- 
with curse we men which arc made after the si- 
militude of God." Nor has this escaped such 
men as Dr. Knapp, who says, that " Against 
this common opinion [that man lost the image 
of God in the fall] it may be objected, that the 
image of God is described in many passages as 
existing after the fall, and as still discoverable 
in men. " The same author tells us that "Epiph- 
anius blames Oriaren for teaching that Adam lost 
the image of God, which he says the Bible 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 95 

does not teach. He knows and believes, that 
the image of God remains in all men." Even 
Dr. A. Clarke says, " The consideration that 
man is made after the image of God should re- 
strain the tongue of the swearer; but there are 
many who, while they pretend to sing the high 
praises of God, are ready to wish the direst im- 
precations either on those who offend them, or 
those with whom they choose to be offended." 
Had not the Doctor fallen asleep before 1841, we 
should have suspected him of some allusion to 
our author, who thinks Universalists worthy of 
nothing 

11 But praises of the libertine confessed, 
The worst of men, and curses of the best." 

That man's constitution, physical and moral, 
is the same now that it was before Adam sinned, 
might seem a natural inference from the univer- 
sal fact that "whatsoever the Lord doeth, it shall 
be for ever ; nothing can be put to it, nor any 
thing taken from it." Changes may be made in 
man's condition and circumstances, but human 
nature must be considered as invariable. Other- 
wise all history is useless, and experience has 
no voice of wisdom. The remark of Bp. But- 
ler seems to us worthy of attention. He says, 
" We should learn to be cautious lest we charge 
God foolishly , by ascribing that to him, or to the 
nature he has given us, which is owing wholly 
to our own abuse of it. Men may speak of the 



96 review of hatfield's 

degeneracy or corruption of the world, accord- 
ing to the experience they have had of it; but 
human nature, considered as the divine work- 
manship, should, methinks, be treated as sacred ; 
for in the image of God made lie man." Accord- 
ing to Prof. Stuart, " Man in his original state, 
had a susceptibility of being excited by sinful 
enticements ;" and he thinks we may regard this 
" as an original part of human nature." So far 
then Adam was constituted as we are. Still he 
thinks this susceptibility fo much increased in us, 
and the excitements by which we are surround- 
ed so multiplied, that it is rendered certain that 
all men will sin as soon as they become moral 
agents, and do nothing but sin, till they are re- 
generated ! ! But may we be permitted to put to 
the Professor and those who think with him, 
some of his own questions on this subject. — 
" Who gave us our body ? Who determined 
the qualities with which we should be born ? — 

We did not ; our parents did not Has our 

Maker then given us a disposition which is it- 
self sin ? This question must at last be met ; 
and few are stern enough to look it directly in 
the face. Pres. Edwards could not. His cour- 
age failed him here." But if we are so unhap- 
pily constituted by nature, come whence and how 
that nature may, that we shall certainly sin and 
sin only, till we are regenerated, should we not 
regard the fact as a great calamity ? What can 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 97 

be more calamitous than to be born with a na- 
ture which necessarily leads us to sin and sin al- 
together, and exposes us to endless torments for 
what nothing but infinite grace can prevent ? 

But by what principles of casuistry, or of 
common sense, can we convict a man of sin for 
doing what he had no power to avoid, and what 
no being in the universe but God could prevent 
his doing ? If such be the constitution of hu- 
man nature, we may easily acquit ourselves of 
all blame. To transgress the divine laws, is 
natural and necessary, and as much makes a law 
of our being, as breathing or taking food ! ! 

In opposition to this blasphemy we maintain 
that man is capable of obeying God, and is verily 
guilty for not doing so. We believe in no "native de- 
pravity" which wholly exculpates the sinner, and 
throws all the blame of transgression back upon 
Adam, or resolves it rather into an ordinance of 
God ! That all men sin we do not deny, but 
we do deny that their nature compels them to 
sin. 

Our author thinks Universalists " must have 
been blessed with remarkable children, or they 
would have found their own offspring giving the 
lie to their doctrines." Be this as it many, we 
would ask, what kind of children it must 
require to justify the popular doctrines of 
of orthodoxy on this subject ] They must be 
"remarkable" indeed! Think of our Savior 



98 REVIEW OF HATFIELD'S 

taking such children in his arms and blessing 
them, and saying, " Of such is the kingdom of 
heaven" ! ! Hear St. Paul, too, exhorting his 
christian brethren, " In malice be ye children" ! 
Our author closes on this head in the following 
words. " The Bible says, ' by one man sin en- 
tered into the world;' 'by the offence of one 
judgment came upon all men to condemnation' ; 
and that by one man's disobedience many were 
made sinners ? Which now shall we believe ? 
Judge ye?" For an exposition of these pas- 
sages of Scripture we would refer our author to 
Prof. Stuart and the Rev. Mr. Barnes, begging 
him at the same time to remember, that they all 
have a glorious counterpart, insomuch that if 
" by one man's disobedience many were made 
sinners, so by the obedience of one (the same) 

MANY SHALL BE MADE RIGHTEOUS." 

Our author next passes to an exposition of 
Universalism relative to the oiigin of sin. " They 
profess to believe," says be, u that sin has its or- 
igin, not in the mind, but in the animal nature." 
He commences this task by giving a hasty sketch 
of Mr. Ballou's crude speculations in the begin- 
ning of his Treatise on Atonement. And 
what is certainly very amusing, he complains of 
the Calvinistic aspect in which Mr. B. places his 
subject, by which " sin is deprived of its malig- 
nity, and made to coincide perfectly with the will 
of God," and that " every sinner in every act of 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 99 

sin, does exactly what the All-wise desires him to 
do." We confess we have no relish for such absur- 
dities, whether uttered by Mr. Ballou,or more au- 
thoritatively taught by the Presbyterian Confes- 
sion of Faith. But we doubt whether it looks 
well in a young man who professes to believe 
that " God foreordains whatsoever comes to 
pass," to be severe in his judgment of others, 
who certainly can believe nothing worse than 
" such infidel absurdities." 

But our author is not yet satisfied. He com- 
plains that according to Mr. Ballou's vagaries, 
" sin is not the act of an independent mind, free 
to choose or refuse!" Is it not marvellous, in- 
deed, that our author can not, or will not, see ? 
Will he inform us what independence and free- 
dom of choice his own iron-creed concedes to 
man X Nay it was but a few pages back that he 
murmured much, and censured bitterly, because 
we believed man so far free from original sin as 
to be equally capable of doing good or evil ! — 
Now, forgetful of the necessarianism of his creed, 
and of his own complaints at our views of moral 
liberty, he has become a valiant champion for 
an independent mind, and freedom to choose or 
refuse ! Truly, he can change his colors with 
singular dexterity. 

On the subject before us our author is sadly 
straitened for authorities. He first spreads out 
Mr. Ballou's opinions, and makes them cover as 



100 review of hatfield's 

much space as possible. These he backs by 
that " oracle indeed," Mr. Kneeland, and then 
closes by the single voice of Mr. Austin. Now 
it happens that Mr.Kneeland merely echoed what 
Mr. Ballou had said before him, and that Mr* 
Austin's views are neither, as to their ground or 
character* at all coincident with those of the lat- 
ter. Mr. Balloiij in his Treatise, first derives 
natural evil from the "physical organization and 
constitution of animal nature." Then, in op- 
position to most christians at the time, he deduc- 
ed moral evil from physical. " From our natural 
constitution, composed ofbodily elements," says 
he, u we are led to act in obedience to carnal 
appetites, which justifies the conclusion that sin 
is the work of the flesh" 

That this view of the subject is " popular in 
the denomination appears," says our author, 
• J from the fact that the Treatise on Atonement 
has probably been more widely circulated than 
any other Universalist work in America !" And 
to bolster up this shallow reasoning, he adds the 
hardy assertion, that this view of the origin of 
sin is essential to the system of Atonement which 
the Treatise contains ! ! This must certainly 
pass for a very bold business, for so conscien- 
tious a gentleman as our author ! 

Mr. Austin came to his conclusion that sin 
springs from " the animal or bodily portion of 
our nature," on what he supposed phrenolgical 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS* 101 

grounds. Apparently overlooking the fact that 
our lower propensities are blind powers, desti- 
tute in themselves of moral character, and clam- 
oring only for present gratification without re- 
gard to morality, he fancied that he found the 
seat of sin where he should have sought only 
the frequent incitements to it, or, in other words, 
its frequent occasion. But the intellectual and 
moral faculties were given to preside in man, and 
unless they yield assent to the appetites and pas- 
sions there is no sin. Hence sin hasits origin, not 
in the lower propensities, which we have in com- 
mon with brutes, but in the higher, of which they 
are destitute, or as the metaphysicians would 
say, in the Will. 

Who there may be among Universalists, be- 
sides those named by our author, that maintain 
the views ascribed to us concerning the origin of 
sin, we know not ! At the same time we do not 
hesitate to avow our conviction that not five in- 
telligent men can be found in the denomination 
who will assent to them. And yet our author 
in his ignorance of his subject, or in a spirit still 
worse than ignorance, charges such views to the 
whole denomination ! ! Did he not know bet- 
ter ? or knowing, did he wilfully misrepresent 
us ? "We would put this question to the gentle- 
man's conscience, and let him answer it to the 
satisfaction of that inward judge if he can. We 
ask no favor for our errors, or the errors of our 

9 



102 review of hatfield's 

brethren. Let them be exposed. But let the 
truth be spoken. This has not been done in the 
ease under consideration. What would our au- 
thor think if we were to represent the perfection- 
ism of Oberlin Institute as the adopted doc- 
trine of the Presbyterian Church? And yet 
such a representation would not be more false 
than this which he has given. 

That Universalists deny the doctrine of " to- 
tal depravity," is very true. We neither believe 
with our orthodox neighbors that man is horn 
totally depraved, nor that it is possible for him 
to become so. We believe with Prof. Tholuck, 
that " it is impossible, that a spirit created in 
his [God's] likeness, should become entirely evil, 
for if all he has of God, should be taken away, 
lie would be no longer the same being." The 
monstrous dogma laid down in the Presbyterian 
Confession of Faith, that man comes into the 
world "averse to all good, and inclined to all 
evil," may correspond perhaps with the testimo- 
ny of our author's consciousness, but we reject 
the idea as a foul slander upon man, and a cal- 
umny upon his Maker. We say with Coleridge, 
that to " talk of man's being utterly lost to good 
is absurd ; for then he would be a devil at once." 
Besides, such a doctrine, if it were true, would 
completely nullify all accountability, and leave 
the Bible a mass of contradictions and absurdi- 
ties. 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 103 

But is it not a marvel that people who pro- 
fess to believe such a dogma as this, should think 
themselves happy in becoming parents, and 
should nestle in their bosoms even their own 
children, since they are no better than imps of 
hell ? And is it not an equal marvel that pious 
people should willingly multiply such subjects of 
total depravity, and objects of God ; s eternal 
wrath and curse ? Such an act, under such cir- 
cumstances, we should hold to be not less crim- 
inal than the foulest murder. If our orthodox 
neighbors can justify themselves in it, it must be 
on the ground that they are infidels to their own 
professions, or else that they themselves are as 
far gone in depravity as it is easy to conceive ! 

But while we maintain that " man never be- 
comes totally depraved," we do not by any means 
call in question, as our author leaves his readers 
to infer, the fact of human depravity. We be- 
lieve all that the Scriptures teach on the subject, 
and that we fear is more than could be said with 
truth of our accuser. If we are to jud^e of his 
faith by its fruits, we should be left to form but a 
humble estimate of its worth. It is obviously 
not that faith which works by love ; and hence 
we regard more in pity than anger the outpour- 
ings of his malice. He accuses us of unsettling 
the very foundations of human accountability, of 
subverting the plainest doctrines of the Scrip- 
tures, and wonders that we should not blush to 



104 REVIEW OF HATFIELD'S 

call ourselves christians, an honorable name, of 
which he, poor specimen of ignorance and de- 
pravity pronounces us " utterly unworthy !" Go 
on brother, but remember that " God is love," 
while " he that loveth not, knoweth not God." 
Thou wilt yet learn that thy wrath is not the 
spirit of Christ, and that thy falsehood is not 
destined to overthrow the truth. 

Our author now passes, p. 76, to a subject on 
which he seems to feel an uncommon interest. 
Universalists, he says,believe that there is no pun- 
ishment after death ! He first glances at the 
views of Relly, Murray, and Chauncy, all of 
whom believed in future punishment, and "even 
the great exploder, Hosea Ballou," he tells us, 
had preached more than twenty five years before 
he fully renounced this doctrine. Nay, he lays 
it down in capitals, that " the doctrine of no pun- 
ishment after death is not yet twenty five years 
old ! An old book," he adds, " may perhaps 
be found, in which this doctrine is expressed." 
But be this as it may, he maintains that it was 
never incorporated into any creed called chris- 
tian till 1816— IS. 

Our author represents this doctrine of no fu- 
ture punishment to be the common doctrine of 
Universalists. In proof of this he refers to the 
little clique of Restorationists in Massachusetts, 
eight or ten years since, as nearly all of this 
faith " who were left ;" they constituted " a very 



UNIVERSALIS*! AS IT IS. 105 

small minority," and alarmed at the inroads of 
no future punishment, " determined in 1832 to 
withdraw from the connexion and form one of 
their own." 

The historical veracity of our author is every 
way equal to his kindness of heart and charity. 
Really or seemingly ignorant of nearly all the 
facts in the case, he talks on with the utmost 
flippancy, and shapes whatever comes in his way 
to suit his own purposes. The fact is, a fact 
which he might have known, and perhaps did 
know but chose to conceal, the Restorationists, 
so called, who withdrew from the denomination 
in 1832, consisted at the time, of six or eight 
individuals, the leaders of whom, at least, were 
actuated by far different motives from those as- 
cribed to them by our author. There were then 
many believers in future punishment in the de- 
nomination, as there are now and ever have 
been ; but they understood the objects of the 
seceders and would not yield themselves to their 
purposes. 

In common with his brethren generally, our 
author is much distressed that Universalists will 
not waste their time in discussing " the simple 
question of punishment after death. n He rep- 
resents us, however, as " ever ready to debate 
the doctrine of endless misery." Now it is cer- 
tainly very unfortunate that the believers and 
advocates of endless torments could not be grat- 

9* 



106 review of hatfield's 

ified in this matter. The fact is, they know 
how much easier it is to maintain merely future 
punishment than endless misery, and notwith- 
standing their boast of being able to prove the 
latter against the whole world, they can only 
with the utmost difficulty be engaged in any 
controversy on the subject. " Let us discuss 
the question of future punishment, V say they. 
But suppose, my brother, you should prove fifty 
million future punishments, one after the other, 
of fifty billions of years duration each ; do you 
not see that it would not furnish you with the 
first step toward proving endless misery ? We 
will concede, if you wish, that for every sin 
which a man ever committed or ever will com- 
mit, he shall suffer 997,856,231,149,078,612,816 
quintillions of ages, and yet we ask, what that 
makes toward endless punishrnent ! If this is 
not satisfactory, we will concede any other du- 
ration to future punishment which our opposers 
may choose, and which they can express in a 
row of figures not exceeding twenty-five thou- 
sand miles in length ! ! And now, having set- 
tled these preliminaries, let us proceed to the 
discussion of the great doctrine of endless pun- 
ishment itself. We make these concessions 
merely to obviate difficulties and delays, al- 
though we feel, and our brethren of the " con- 
trary part" can not but feel, ihat if endless ??iis- 
ery can be proved, it will embrace all the future 



UNIVERSALIS^ AS IT IS. 107 

punishment which any one can possibly desire. 
But may we be permitted to ask why all this 
anxiety to debate " the simple question of pun- 
ishment after death V Is it not because the 
advocates of endless torments are conscious of 
the weakness of their cause ? Let their own 
hearts answer. 

Our author closes a long chapter on this sub- 
ject with a most powerful and affecting appeal 
to both Universalist ^mzcAers and people. We 
thank him, in the name of the denomination, for 
his well-meant kindness, and we have no doubt 
that hereafter we shall preach what we believe, 
and preach as faithfully, as our orthodox neigh- 
bors are in the habit of doing. But would it 
not be well for our brother to heed his own ex- 
hortation. We remember once inviting him, 
the very author of " Universalism as it is," to 
repeat a Lecture against Universalism in the 
Orchard street Church. Did he do it ] Not he, 
" On what principle of common humanity" could 
he decline % His reason was no doubt a valid 
one. He did not think it best. " And why, in 
the name of God" — we are using his own zeal- 
ous language — did he not think it best % But 
enough. Mr. Hatfield is too wise a man to bat- 
tle Universalism in an open field. He knows 
his strength, or rather his weakness, too well 
for that. In his own pulpit he is a very lion- 
heart, and his trained hearers think him invin- 



108 

cible. It would be a pity that the spell should 
be broken ! 

Our candid author next proceeds to abuse 
Universalists, as if they were guilty of intro- 
ducing a new rule of faith. He quotes a pas- 
sage from " their great Rabbi, Hosea Ballou," 
in which he says that instead of "straining par- 
ticular passages which speak of the punishment 
of the wicked, so as to favor the idea of unlim- 
ited punishment, we should feel justified in 
restraining any passage, could such be found, 
that should seem to favor an opinion so dishon- 
orable to God and so revolting to our best feel- 
ings." At this our author breaks out with these 
words — " Let it never be said, after this, that the 
Bible is the Universalist's Rule of Faith. Ev- 
ery thing in and out of the Bible must be made 
to bend to his own ' feelings, 1 &c." 

We should do injustice to our author's com- 
mon sense were we to say that he did not know 
that all this is uncandid and false. The princi- 
ple here expressed by Mr. Ballou is a common 
one, adopted by all interpreters of the Bible, 
and without which the Bible could never be 
consistently explained, or its doctrines defend- 
ed. Why then this tirade of abuse ? We sus* 
pect there is some " depravity" here. But we 
pass on. 

" Reasoning from the premises laid down by 
Mr. Ballou, and adopted so generally, (!) that sin 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 109 

is the work of the flesh, or man's animal nature 
as it exists in this life, it was easy to see that 
sin ceases with the death of the body. If man 
ceases to sin, then, say they, he ceases to suffer ; 
therefore, there is no punishment in a future 
state. The very thing that was to be proved !" 

Now those Universalists who believe in no 
future punishment, do indeed believe that sin 
ceases at death, not however as our author rep- 
resents it, because sin is the work oj the flesh, but 
because he will be raised immortal and incor- 
ruptible ; that is, because in the next state of ex- 
istence he will be removed to a world where 
the temptations to sin will no longer exist, but 
every thing will conspire to his improvement in 
holiness and love. Our author, who does not 
seek to know, or at least to tell the truth, says 
" it is more than intimated that a mere spiritual 
being can not sin. So they v/ould have us be- 
lieve, whether they teach it in so many words 
or not." Is not this a most remarkable asser- 
tion ? Where, we ask, is it intimated that " a 
mere spiritual being can not sin 1" We know 
not, nor does our author know. Why then did 

he assert such an arrant ? But let this 

pass. He who calls our author to an account 
for all his flagrant misrepresentations must have 
more leisure for such an ungrateful task than 
we. 

Next comes the Universalist doctrine, that 



110 

" Mankind are naturally and originally mortal" 
The popular absurdity is, that God made man 
immortal, that is, he made him in such a man- 
ner that his body should never die. Still this 
immortality was curiously enough nothing pos- 
itive, but predicated on a condition ; in other 
words, God made man immortal, if man himself 
had a mind to be immortal, otherwise he was 
mortal. We confess we can not understand 
this mystery, but to our learned author,we doubt 
not, it is as clear as Euclid. Of course, when 
our first parents sinned, the death of the body, 
or natural death, as it is erroneously called, be- 
came a very trifling part of the penalty ; death 
spiritual and death eternal making up the re- 
mainder ! 

The Universalists have been wicked enough 
to call this beautiful doctrine in question. From 
the language of Scripture and the facts in the 
case, they argue that as man was made of the 
dust of the ground, it is very natural to suppose, 
with an inspired writer, that " the dust must 
return to the earth as it was ;" and that, in com- 
mon with all things that live on this globe, he 
was destined to die. Not even the sinless Son 
of God was free from this universal law ! 

But our author is too keen-sighted to suffer 
an advantage to pass unimproved, and so, for- 
sooth, he must convict these " renowned re- 
formers" of inconsistency. He does it thus. 



UNIVERSALIS*! AS IT IS. Ill 

While Universalists deny that natural death is 
a consequence of sin, they frequently maintain 
that the threatenings of the Bible refer only to 
the cessation of natural life, " thus/' says our 
author, "making natural death the greatest pun- 
ishment to which mankind are liable !" Is not 
that done like a logician ] There is one conso- 
lation, however, in this discomfiture. We are 
in much good company. For although the death 
of the body has now become natural, and every 
one dies whether or no, still legislators in all 
ages and countries, and even God himself, un- 
der the Mosaic economy, threatened death as 
one of the greatest penalties that man can here 
suffer. 

Mr. Hatfield seems not to discriminate very 
clearly here. Whether natural death is to be 
regarded as the punishment of the original trans- 
gression is one question, and that can be deter- 
mined only by an appeal to the testimony of the 
Scriptures, explained and illustrated by the facts 
of our constitution and the constitution of the 
world in which we were originally placed, and 
of which we may be said in some sense to make 
a part. It is another and a very different ques- 
tion, whether premature, violent, or ignominious 
death, inflicted by God or man, is to be regard- 
ed as a punishment. Not attending to this, our 
author spends a whole page in proving what 
nobody denies, that cutting short man's life is 



112 

represented in the Scriptures as a punishment, 
a token of the divine displeasure. But when 
he concludes that " man's mortality is thus attri- 
buted to the anger of God/' he introduces quite 
another subject, of which he has adduced no 
proof whatever. " But Paul," says he, " is much 
more explicit, and seems to put the matter be- 
yond controversy. To the Romans he says, 
' As by one man sin entered into the world, and 
death by sin, and so death passed upon all men.' " 
But unfortunately for our author, Paul is no 
more explicit than Moses. Neither of them 
affirms, that by death, they mean death of the 
body, and our author can not be ignorant of the 
latitude in which the term is used throughout 
the Scriptures. But the most conclusive proof 
is found in 1 Cor. xv. 21, 22 : " For since by 
man came death, by man came also the resur- 
rection of the dead," &c. Very true ; but here 
the other fact, necessary to the popular scheme, 
is wholly wanting, viz. that this death is the pun- 
ishment of sin. This the apostle does not say. 
Nor was it necessary to say it. Death came by 
man because man was mortal ; not because he 
was a sinner. 

In short, the Scriptures furnish no proof that 
an immortality of the body was forfeited by 
transgression. Our author, therefore, might 
have spared the following paragraph : " The 
Bible, therefore, teaches that, had not man sin- 



UNI VERS AliISM AS IT IS. 113 

rxe&, he would not have been mortal ; natural 
death is the fruit of sin. Far distant be the day 
when men shall forsake the authority of Moses 
mud Paul, speaking ' as they were moved by the 
Holy Ghost,' for such self-constituted standards 
as Ballou, Balfour & Co/" How peaceful, how 
Christian-like must be the mind from which a 
whole volume of such choice expressions as 
these could proceed, And such is the mind of 
Rev. E. F. Hatfield ! May God bless him, is our 
earnest prayer. 

From our views of man's natural mortality, 
our author passes to consider the doctrine that 
** Man has no immortal soul" He'acknowledges 
that on this subject there is a difference of opin- 
ion among us, but still he is " prepared to show 
that this is the prevailing belief" of Universal- 
ists. Since this subject affords a favorable 
theme by which to excite and strengthen the 
prejudices of his orthodox and unthinking 
readers against Universalism, our author dwells 
upon it with apparently peculiar gratification, 
and devotes no less than sixteen pages of his 
work to its exhibition. It is very obvious, how- 
ever, to every one in the slightest degree ac- 
quainted with the subject, that it made no part 
of his design to present a fair statement of our 
views upon it, but that throughout the whole, it 
was his great object to seek occasion for expos- 
ing Universalists to suspicion or contempt. In 

10 



114 REVIEW OF HATFIELD'S 

accordance with this benevolent design he in- 
dulges in " the sin that doth so easily beset him" 
of calling hard names and employing abusive 
epithets. Hence he denominates " Mr. Ballou a 
Materialist, and of the worst stamp ;" the public 
advocates of Universalism are called " dishonest 
teachers," and he speaks of " their more refined 
and Atheistical speculations.' He says we 
make " Death, and not Jesus, the Savior from 
sin," and finally expresses his astonishment that 
" the authors and abettors of this heaven-daring 
and insulting scheme call themselves CHRIS- 
TIANS ! !" 

Readers of candid minds will be apt to in- 
quire what grand offence we have been guilty 
of, to call down upon our heads such severe ex- 
pressions of censure ; what capital heresy are 
we involved in that thus excludes us not only 
from the christian name, but also from the 
smallest share of christian charity % 

We remark, in the first place, that Univer- 
salists, however erroneous their opinions may 
be in other respects, still believe and maintain 
most religiously the Scripture doctrine of the 
resurrection of the dead, and of life and immor- 
tality. On this subject no class of christians 
can claim a broader or stronger faith than we, 
and to those who are qualified to judge we need 
not say, that no denomination dwells on these 
themes with half the frequency as is common 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 115 

with Universalists. The grand heresy, then, 
of which our author accuses us, consists of some- 
thing lying without the domain of purely chris- 
tian truth ; it is that of doubting or denying 
the common philosophical doctrine of 't7ie immor- 
tality of the soul. But this awful error does not 
belong to the whole denomination. As we have 
before remarked, our author acknowledges that 
Universalists are not agreed upon the subject, 
but yet that "their prevailing belief" is that 
" man has no immortal soul." 

It will be seen at once from what has been 
already said, that toe, at least, or such of us 
as doubt or deny the doctrine in question, make 
a somewhat important distinction between the 
christian doctrine of immortality, and the philo- 
sophical doctrine of the immortality of the 
soul. Let us spend a moment in exhibiting 
that distinction. The philosophical doctrine 
of the immortality of the soul is of great 
antiquity. It was introduced in Greece by 
Thales or Pherecydes, and was the common 
doctrine of the Socratic School, and especially 
of Plato, who brought it, as we may say, to its 
present state of perfection. Dr. Knapp acknowl- 
edges that in " the varied web of proof in our 
modern philosophical schools, the chief threads, 
and as it were the entire material, are of Grecian 
origin." It taught that man has a part within 
him, the mind or soul, which is by nature im* 



IIS review of Hatfield's 

mortal, and that, come what will, it can not die z 
or as Pres. Dwight says of man, " Live he must, 
die he can not," This doctrine was early con- 
nected with the christian religion, and has gen- 
erally been received in the church. Still there- 
have been many who have doubted its truth, or 
wholly denied it. Among the Greek Fathers 
several rejected the doctrine of the immortality 
©f the soul, as Justin Martyr,, Tatian, and The- 
ophilus of Antioch, who were the earliest apol- 
ogists for Christianity, and others of a later 
period. Will our author tell us if these Fathers 
of the church were " Materialists,, and of the 
worst stamp, 5 ' and also " authors and abettors 
of a heaven-daring and insulting scheme,'* full 
<of " atheistical speculations 1" 

Those Universalists who have called in ques- 
tion the doctrine of the immortality of the soul 
have done so for t we reasons, First, because the 
arguments usually relied on for its proof are 
insufficient and unsatisfactory. They never 
fully satisfied the philesophers themselves, and 
are no better now than they were two thousand 
years ago. And secondly, they believe that the 
Sacred Scriptures, the only infallible source of 
evidence on a subject of this nature, are quite 
silent in relation to the doctrine in question.. 
Whether they err in this opinion, is perhaps 
not readily decided, but it is still a fact that 
they are supported by the most respectable ait- 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 117 

thority. To give one instance. Prof. Uhle- 
mann, in an article translated from the Studien 
and Kritiken, and published in the Oct. No. of 
the Bibical Repository for 1837, says, "It is 
certainly an accurate and very general observa- 
tion that the immortality of the soul is, by no means 
expressly taught in the Scriptures, and much less 
its mortality. Christianity at all events prom- 
ises eternal life and most decidedly recognizes 
the continuance of the holy principle in man." 
In a similar spirit Dr. Knapp says that Christ 
" always connects this doctrine with that of his 
own person. He it is to whom we are indebt- 
ed for this truth ; without him we should not 
have had it. He is the purchaser and giver of 
life, and of a blessed immortality P We confess 
that Dr. Knapp is by no means quite self con- 
sistent throughout, and that he apparently con- 
founds the philosophical doctrine of the immor- 
tality of the soul, with that immortality which 
the Scriptures reveal. But there is obviously 
but one meaning to the paragraph quoted above. 
If the Savior always connects the doctrine of 
immortality with that of his own person, if he 
is the author of the doctrine, and moreover, if 
he is in fact the purchaser and giver of life and 
immortality, it is seen at once as an unavoida- 
ble consequence, that man was not by nature 
immortal ; otherwise we not only had the doc- 
trine from the philosophers, but we had the 

10* 



/ 



II& 

immortality itself, and are therefore obliged to 
Christ neither for its gift nor its revelation ! 

To us the Scriptures seem to be not merely 
silent with respect to the immortality of the 
soul, but, on the other hand, to teach very clear- 
ly that our immortality is predicated on " the 
Lord of Life," Jesus Christ. St. Paul affirms 
that w if Christ be not risen — then they that are 
fallen asleep in Christ are perished." Perish- 
ished ! How could an immortal soul perish ? 
And what difference, as to the fact of its future 
existence, could it make whether Christ had 
risen or not ? In the 15th chapter of the first 
epistle to the Corinthians, from which the above 
quotation is made, the apostle seems to predi- 
cate all hope of immortality on the resurrection 
of the dead; and this resurrection, moreover, 
he blended with the resurrection of Christ. If 
there be no resurrection of the dead, then Christ 
is not risen ; and if Christ be not risen, then 
there is no resurrection of the dead, and conse- 
quently the dead are perished ! The whole 
chapter appears to go on this principle* As 
death came by man, so by man came the resur- 
rection of the dead. As in Adam all die, even 
so in Christ shall aU he made alive. What lan- 
guage could more decisively prove that the im- 
mortality of our race is not merely connected 
with Christ, but that it depends upon him, so 
that without him it would not be ? If an oppo- 



\ 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 119 

ser pleases to maintain that this being made alive 
in Christ.refersnot to the fact of our immortality, 
but to that of the spiritual and blessed life 
which Christ confers, we might concede the 
point to him for a moment, but only to show 
him that this proves at once the doctrine of un- 
versal salvation. For all who die in Adam shall 
be made alive in Christ. But it was evidently 
of future existence that the apostle spoke, and 
we confess our ignorance of any method of re- 
conciling this whole chapter with the doctrine 
of the immortality of the soul. 

Nor is it in one passage, or one chapter alone 
that this view of the subject is made to appear. 
St. Paul convicts the heathen of " having no 
hope" and of being " without God in the world." 
But were not the heathen the authors and patrons 
of the doctrine at the immortality of the soul ? 
And how then were they without hope ] On 
the hypothesis that this doctrine was true, they 
had much hope. So also they had gods by the 
thousand, but with all their gods, and all their 
hope, the apostle asserted that they were at 
once without God and without hope in the world. 
That is, they had neither the true God, nor true 
hope. But the Scriptures furnish another kind 
of evidence still. They represent Christ as be- 
ing in his disciples " the hope of glory." So 
God is said to have given them " good hope 
through grace," and to have begotten them 



120 review of Hatfield's 

again of his abundant mercy to " a living hope 
by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." 
In short, as we understand the New Testa- 
ment, man is now permitted to hope for immor- 
tality, not because the soul is immortal, but be- 
cause Christ has risen. Hence this mortal shall 
put on immortality, and this corruptible shall 
put on incorruption. 

It can not escape the most careless reader, 
that however erroneous our views on this point 
may be, they are still such as greatly enhance 
the preciousness of Christ. To our mind and 
heart, he is more, much more, than the mere 
follower of Plato, or the mere teacher and con- 
firmer of the speculations of the Greek phi- 
losophers ! He is the author and finisher of 
our faith, and we are not ashamed to acknowl- 
edge, the only ground of our hope. Take 
Christ away, and you blast all our confidant ex- 
pectations of immortality. Disprove his resur- 
rection, and we shall be tempted to say with the 
apostle, then are the dead perished ! When this 
is done, when Christianity is shown to be a fa- 
ble, and the fact of the resurrection a lie, then, 
and not till then, shall we sit down at the feet of 
heathen philosophers and learn of them. We 
believe with our whole soul that God, who only 
hath immortality, and hath life in himself, has 
also given to his Son to have life in himself, and 
that according to the economy of grace, it is 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 121 

hence his blessed prerogative to confer immor 
tality on whom he wi)l. We moreover believe 
that this unspeakable gift is designed to be as 
universal as the nature in which the Son of God 
appeared ; so that he who died and rose again, 
will make all alive in himself, with his own im- 
mortal, and, therefore, spiritual and happy life, 
and render them meet partakers of an inheri- 
tance incorruptible, undefined and that fadeth 
not away, reserved in heaven for us. 

If this be "materialism" if such a faith can 
be called " atheistical speculations/' if for pos- 
sessing it, and calling in question one of the 
dogmas of heathen philosophy, we are to be de- 
nied the name of christians, and denounced as 
" the authors and abettors of a heaven-daring 
and insulting scheme, " be it so. We know in 
whom we have believed, and still say with Pe- 
ter, " Lord, to whom shall we go; thou hast the 
words of eternal life ?" If any one has reason 
to reproach his neighbor for having abandoned 
the simplicity of the gospel, and substituted the 
doctrines of men, it is certainly Universalists 
rather than their opposers. And yet this pitiful 
railer accuses us of having "degraded ourselves 
nearly to a level with the brutes, " and prays the 
Lord to " deliver his people and the world 
from such unprincipled teachers !" Unprinci- 
pled teachers, because we preach Christ rather 
than a vain philosophy, and expect to live be- 



122 review of hatfield's 

yond the jrave because He lives. It is well, 
for there are some men whose slander even is 
praise, and whom one has never so much rea- 
son to dread as when they would flatter and ap- 
plaud. 

Perhaps our author's abuse of Universalists 
may have been somewhat heightened, by the 
very scholar-like blunder which he has witting- 
ly or ignorantly made, and persisted in through 
the whole article, of confounding a denial of the 
immortality of the soul, with a belief in that of 
the, so called, sleep of the soul ! Filled apparent- 
ly with this idea, which we really think he 
adopted in his haste and ignorance, the learned 
writer of " Universalism as it is," has expend- 
ed many exclamation points, and indulged in 
many very hard speeches, which however much 
they might be deserved, could in justice fall 
only upon a very few heads. The peculiar 
views of Mr. Balfour, who must be regarded 
as almost the only patron of the latter doctrine 
among us, have been unceremoniously as- 
cribed to the mass of the denomination, and 
then in a spirit of unsparing censure they have 
been abused for their materialism and their 
" atheistical speculations," in believing in the 
sleep of the soul. How the sleep of the soul, 
or a state of partial or total unconsciousness af- 
ter death, favor3 atheism, or even materialism, 
more than the same states do before death, our 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 123 

philosophical author does not condescend to 
inform us. Men in perfect health, sleep 
for several hours every day in quite an uncon- 
scious state ; in disease, and under various in- 
juries of the brain, the same phenomenon is fre- 
quently observed, and the period of unconscious- 
ness is sometimes protracted to days or weeks. 
If this does not prove materialism, we do not 
readily see how this doctrine follows of necessity 
from the obnoxious sentiment of the sleep of 
the soul. If a spirit can sleep an hour or a 
minute, who can decide how long it is necessa- 
ry to continue in this state in order to prove it 
material 1 We make these remarks, not be- 
cause we have any sympathy with materialism, 
or the doctrine of the sleep of the soul, but 
from a profound conviction that neither phi- 
losophy nor revelation gives us any knowledge 
respecting the substance of the mind or soul. — 
Whatever our speculations may be, we believe 
it impossible to prove its absolute materiality 
or immateriality. The subject lies beyond the 
reach of our faculties ; nor is it important that 
we should know. That we possess our various 
intellectual and moral powers, and are respon- 
sible for their exercise ; that we shall live be- 
yond the grave, and be immortal, are truths 
which no christian can doubt ; but that the 
thinking principle within us is this or that sub- 
stance, is not in the present state either know- 



124 

able or necessary for us to know. So at least 
we think, and we know that in this opinion we 
are sustained by some of the best minds, among 
both philosophers and divines. 

But how far are Universalists justly accused 
of believing in the doctrine of the sleep of the 
soul 1 Our author is anxious to make the im- 
pression that it is very general. Hence he says, 
" A silence, like that of the grave is observed 
by the greater part of Universalist writers res- 
pecting the state of the dead. Now and then a 
sentiment appears in the dying sayings of some 
of their number, and in their fugitive poetry 
which would seem to imply that the departed 

are happy in heaven But the creed of 

the Universalists recognizes no such hope." 
He is generous enough, however, to except 
common people. " That the common people main- 
tain them [the views of Mr. Balfour] I do not 
believe: They hope to go to heaven as soon as 
they die. And their dishonest teachers have 
not benevolence enough to undeceive them, and 
to introduce them to a full acquaintance with 
their more refined and atheistical speculations.' 1 
The " common people" of the Universalist de- 
nomination will, no doubt, thank Mr, Hatfield for 
his benevolent exertions to enlighten them with 
respect to the real opinions of their ministers 
and writers. But where did he obtain this 
superior knowledge % From Universalist books 



UNIVERSALIS])! AS IT IS. 125 

he tells us. Yea, and the very books, too, that 
are already in the hands of these " common 
people ! !" 

But we here have another specimen of our 
author's candor. Apparently conscious of the 
piece of injustice which he was committing, he 
endeavored to fortify himself, in precisely the 
way which most effectually works out his own 
condemnation. " If it be said," says he, u that 
these are the views of Mr. Balfour alone, I ask 
for the proof. They have never been disowned 
by the order, and his works are every where 
for sale in their book stores as Universalist pub- 
lications !" With " common people," it is sup- 
posed that he who accuses another is bound to 
prove his accusation, or retract it. Not so, 
however, with the learned pastor of the Seventh 
Presbyterian Church. He asserts what we be- 
lieve, and very charitably calls upon us to dis- 
prove it if we choose. Besides, Mr. Balfour's 
views have never been disowned by the order; 
and moreover, as if to settle the point beyond 
dispute, Mr. Balfour's books are sold in Uviver- 
salist book stores as Universalist publications ! ! 
He who will not be convinced by such an array 
of evidence must be slow of heart to believe 
the Reverend author of " Universalism as it is." 

After dwelling at such length on this part of 
the work before us, it may not be out of place 
to state here what Universalists really believe on 

11 



126 REVIEW OF HATriELD's 

a subject of so much importance and interest to 
the human heart. In the first place, some adopt 
or rather perhaps retain, the popular doctrine of 
the immortality of the soul ; but we think the 
more general belief is that immortality is not 
an original property of human nature, but it is 
to be regarded as the gift of God communicat- 
ed to man through Jesus Christ alone, in whom 
we now behold our nature immortalized, and 
through whom we anticipate the resurrection 
from the dead, and life and immortality. With 
respect to the time of the resurrection, there 
are two diffent opinions ; some maintaining that 
it takes place immediately or very shortly after 
death ; and others that it is to take place with 
all simultaneously at some future but unknown 
period. Those who entertain the latter opin- 
ion are again divided, for while some be- 
lieve in an intermediate state, such as is gener- 
erally held by the Lutherans and the Episco- 
palians, in which the soul enjoys a conscious 
existence separated from the body, with which 
it is to be reunited at the resurrection, others, 
a very limited number, believe in what is called 
the sleep of the soul from death to the morning 
of a general resurrection. Unless we are mis- 
taken, Mr. Balfour is the only patron of the 
latter doctrine and we are certain that his views 
on this subject have met with a very limited 
reception, and are generally looked upon with 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 127 

dislike. But it is an opinion felt to be too cold 
and cheerless to gain a wide adoption, and 
therefore needs little refutation beyond the im- 
pulses of a warm and beating heart. 

It will be seen from this, that our author's 
representation is sadly deficient in both its ex- 
tent and its truth. He probably took no pains 
to inform himself of our opinions, and provided 
it would make against Universalism, we fear 
he cared little whether he gave his readers any 
just idea of them or not. We leave the subject 
for the consideration of such as please to peruse 
these pages, and are capable of judging with 
candor. 

On p. 117, our author commences an exposi- 
tion of the views of Universalists relative to 
punishment, and truly represents us as entertain- 
ing the opinion that there is no escape from 
the just judgments of God. " When this sect," 
says he, " first became known, they were accused 
of setting aside the justice of God, while they 
magnified his mercy out of all proportion." 

This is quite true. Universalists not only 
were, but still are, thus accused. We are often 
reminded by our opposers that God is just as 
well as good. The accusation to which our au- 
thor refers, rests on the broad fact, that Univer- 
salists extend to the whole human family, the 
same mercy, which most christian professors had, 
with a peculiar regard to their own interests, ap- 



123 review of Hatfield's 

propriated exclusively to themselves. This was 
an offence not easily tolerated. The supposition 
that God loved others as well as he did them, 
was not to be endured. They thought it very 
proper that God should show his great mercy to 
a little handful of the human race, but the idea of 
making it universal was in direct opposition of 
all the partial creeds of the day. Besides it in- 
volved this difficulty : If the Lord, said they, is 
good to all and his tender mercy is over all his 
works, what becomes of the divine justice ? You 
must remember that God is just as well as mer- 
ciful. Having settled the matter in their own 
imaginations that they were vessels of mercy, 
they became exceedingly concerned that justice 
should be duly honored in the endless damnation 
of a large portion of their fellow men. Hence a 
clamor was raised against Universalism, that it 
set aside the justice of God, and magnified be- 
yond all proportion the divine mercy ; and this 
clamor has not yet ceased, and probably never 
will, as long as men cultivate the narrow spirit 
of selfishness as much as even most christians 
do, and cherish creeds so entirely opposed to 
the catholic spirit of the gospel as most of those 
now in great reputation actually are. 

But our author, who, it must be remembered, 
has dived into the very abominations of modern 
Universalism, informs us that the whole scheme 
has been " professedly remodeled, and at length 



UtflVERSALISM AS IT IS. 129 

come forth with an entire new dress. From 
having pushed the doctrine of divine mercy to 
an extreme, at the expense of justice they now 
cast mercy aside and maintain that justice will 
be exacted even to the uttermost farthing, of 
every transgressor. The God whom our modern 
Universalists profess to worship, is a God inex- 
orable, as determined to exact and obtain to the 
very letter of the law all that justice demands of 
the sinner personally, as the veriest Shylock. Let 
the world fully understand that this scheme of 
* universal charity ,' as it has been called, shuts 
up the bowels of divine compassion and pro- 
claims that Every man will inevitably suffer to the 
full extent of his deserts" 

There are several points implied in this state- 
ment, to the proof of which our author devotes 
ten pages, which seem to demand some remarks. 
It will be seen at a glance that he starts from 
the old but absurd hypothesis that justice and 
mercy are essentially opposite attributes, and 
contradictory of each other, so that God in order 
to be merciful must suspend his justice, and vice 
versa. Hence it happens that the wit of Dr. 
Young which our author represents as having 
been expended upon Universalists, really falls 
on the heads of their opposers. 

14 They set at odds heaven's jarring attributes, 
And with one excellence another wound, 
Till mercy [or justice, as the case may be] triumphs oyer 
—God himself." 

11* 



130 

In other words God can not be both just and 
merciful to the same individual. If he is just, 
then is his " mercy clean gone for ever ;" if, on 
the other hand, he is merciful he must cease to 
be just. This is the true orthodox representa- 
tion of the case, although it is now abandoned 
by many of the most enlightened theologians of 
all sects in Christendom. 

It needs no great penetration to see that this 
view of the subject leads directly to the conclu- 
sion that all law and all punishment, so far as 
they are just, are unmerciful, or rather are des- 
titute of all benevolence. Hence all the labor 
that has been expended by the advocates of end- 
less misery, to show that doctrine to be consis- 
tent with the divine goodness, is not merely use- 
less but absolutely destructive of the scheme for 
whose support it is employed. It is an implied 
confession that the divine attributes are, in their 
action, really harmonious, while the creed stands* 
wholly opposed to such a representation. 

According to our trust-worthy author, Uni- 
versalists formerly "pushed the doctrine of the 
divine mercy to an extreme at the expense of 
justice." This was done, as we have before in- 
timated, by their extending that mercy to all, 
which religionists appropriated exclusively to 
themselves. Now, according to the same au- 
thority, they " cast mercy aside and maintain 
that justice will be exacted even to the uttermost 



TJNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 131 

farthing of every transgressor." The truth is, our 
opposers are very much like the Jews of our 
Savior's time ; they are determined not to be 
pleased, come what will. At one time we are 
accused of denying all justice, and at another, 
all mercy ; but, right or wrong, we must be ac- 
cused of denying something. 

The Universalist doctrines, it is readily ac- 
knowledged, are quite different from those 
entertained on the subject by the so-called or- 
thodox world. We believe it really possible for 
God to be just without being a monster of 
cruelty; and on the other hand, to be merciful 
"without becoming unjust, or a weak and woman- 
ish ruler. In short, we believe with the Bible 
and with the best authorities of all creeds, that 
God is love, and, therefore, that all his moral 
attributes, be they what they may, can not be 
inconsistent with the divine nature, that is, love. 

It might seem a little odd, were it not for 
the well known prejudices of the day, that it 
should be brought as an accusation against Uni- 
versalists that they believe precisely what the 
Scriptures teach with great frequency and with 
singular explicitness of language, viz. that God is 
strictly just, and renders to every man according to 
Jiis works! Such an accusation, unfortunately 
for the accuser, falls back beyond us, upon those 
men of old, " who spake as they were moved by 
the Holy Ghost," and rests ultimately upon God 



132 REVIEW OF HATFIELD S 

himself. If God has deceived us by the assur- 
ance that although he is abundant in goodness 
and truth, yet he will by no means clear the 
guilty; that " though hand join in hand, the 
wicked shall not be unpunished ;" and that " he 
that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong 
which he hath done, and there is no respect of 
persons ;" if, we say, God has deceived us by 
these and similar declarations with which his 
word abounds, we must regard it as our misfor- 
tune rather than our fault. We appeal to his 
teachings for our faith. If we err, it must be 
confessed that we err on the safe side, for we 
err with the Bible. What if the church, with 
few exceptions, oppose our views ? God has 
said that " the wicked shall not be unpunished/' 
and we humbly suspect, that whoever takes it 
upon himself to contradict the divine assertion, 
will, in the end, find himself in no trifling error. 
But we have a somewhat curious coincidence 
here. While our author was preparing the vol- 
ume before us for the press, the Rev. Dr. Par- 
ker was also engaged in delivering in various 
churches in the city a course of Lectures on 
Universalism, which have since been published 
for the third or fourth time. We can not but 
admire the very different opinions of these two 
opposers of the Universalist faith. While Mr. 
Hatfield regards it as a matter of grave accusa- 
tion that Universalists believe in the unavoida- 



UNIVERSALIS]*! AS IT IS. 133 

bleness of just punishment, Dr. Parker takes 
the ground boldly, that the power of moral gov- 
ernment " is suspended mainly upon the degree 
of certainty with which the penalty is seen to 
follow the infraction of the law," and that ' 4 un- 
der every administration, in proportion as the 
hope of impunity is allowed to become strong, 
in the same proportion is the power of the law 
diminished." It is readily seen that according 
to this principle a perfect government, such 
as all suppose that of God to be, must be " inex- 
orable" as our author expresses himself. But 
we need not rest on a mere inference, for Dr. 
Parker has explained himself so fully as to for- 
bid all occasion for such an appeal. " It is the 
perfection of God's legal government," says he, 
" that its sanctions are both adequate and certain. 
# # # i think, I shall be able to show that there is 
nothing in the government of God to encourage 
the least hope of impunity ; nothing to mitigate 
in the smallest degree the doom of the trans- 
gressor. The penalty of the divine law is 
weighty as God's eternal curse, and sure as his 
ability to inflict it" ! ! If, now, it is a mortal sin 
in Universal ists to believe in the absolute un- 
avoidableness of punishment, we advise our au- 
thor to attempt the conversion of his own brother, 
the Rev. Dr. Parker. True, while our views 
stand connected with universal salvation, the 
Doctor's lead directly and necessarily to univer- 



134 review of hatfield's 

sal damnation, which is a circumstance of some 
importance and may commend them to the 
favorable consideration of our author. 

But no inconsiderable part of our offence in 
this matter, seems to consist in the belief that 
God punishes every transgressor personally for 
his transgressions. The popular creeds repre- 
sent God as "inexorable ," and, as our author 
classically expresses himself, " determined to ex- 
act and obtain to the very letter of the law, all 
that justice demands of the sinner — as the veriest 
Shylock." The difference lies here. The Uni- 
versalist believes that " the sinner personally ," 
shall suffer according to his deserts. Our author- 
dox neighbors, believe the same thing so far as 
God is concerned, but they think divine justice 
is, with all its terribleness, so good natured and 
accommodating an attribute, that, provided it only 
obtains its demands, it does not care a farthing 
whether it comes from the guilty or the innocent ! 
It is a constant principle with them, that when 
sin has been committed, somebody must suffer, 
and that God has no mercy for the sinner until 
his justice, or more properly his vengeance, is 
satiated. According to the most approved the- 
ology, God was all wrath and indignation till 
his Son stood forth and volunteered to become 
the sinner's surety ; this changed the whole as- 
pect of the divine Being at once, and then he 
actually began to love and favor those whom he 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 135 

had before only hated. Which is the most amia- 
ble judge, he who is rigidly just, and rewards 
every man according to his works, and rewards 
every one in his own person, or he who equally 
rigid in his demands of justice, is willing to 
trample justice under foot by inflicting the pun- 
ishment due to the guilty, upon the innocent ? 
Let every reader answer. 

It is very obvious that our author has no love 
for a God strictly just, and who will by no means 
clear the guilty. He apparently dislikes, be- 
yond measure, the idea that every sinner is to 
suffer personally according to his deserts, and 
that there is no possibility of escape ! It is in- 
deed an unpalatable doctrine, and our author 
has the cordial sympathies of a large part of the 
religious, and the whole of the irreligious world 
in opposition to it. The ungodly are very will- 
ing to believe what a corrupt creed teaches, 
that a man may sin and yet easily shun the pen- 
alty of a righteous law ! It is a flattering unc- 
tion which the wicked are ever ready to lay to 
their souls ; and yet this is the system so much 
boasted for its moral influences, while Univer- 
salism, which teaches, according to the Scrip- 
tures, that " He that doeth wrong, shall receive 
for the wrong which he hath done, v is denounc- 
ed as of exceedingly licentious tendency, the 
very doctrine of the Devil ! ! 
, Our author attempts to exhibit an inconsis- 



136 REVIEW OF Hx\TFIELD's 

tency between our views of punishment and the 
doctrine of " forgiveness." In this he has not 
succeeded to admiration, from the simple cir- 
cumstance, that while he speaks of the forgive- 
ness or remission of punishment , the Scriptures 
uniformly speak of the forgiveness of sin or ini- 
quity ; a trifling distinction, which our author 
has probably never observed. His attempt to 
array David and Ezra and Daniel against the 
Scripture doctrine of the certainty of punish- 
ment, is equally unavailing, since it is obvious 
that two or three expressions of men smarting 
under the consciousness of sin, are not to be 
considered as counteracting the frequent and 
clear teachings of all God's holy prophets on the 
subject before us. 

In connexion with the subject of punishment, 
our author labors with much zeal to show that 
according to Universalism, or more accurately, 
according to one of its advocates, " suicide is no 
crime" This is really one of the most remarkable 
passages in Mr. Hatfield's vaunted work. It is 
remarkable in several respects. In the first 
place, he charges upon A. B. Grosh an opinion 
which he has, we have reason to believe, never 
expressed. And in the second, he attempts, in 
accordance with his custom, to make the de- 
nomination responsible for the opinion express- 
ed by an individual. The attempt to prove 
that " suicide is no crime," is said to have been 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. J37 

made by Mr. Grosh in the Magazine and Advo- 
cate, Vol. viii. p. 358. " As this individual/ 9 
says oar author, u exerts a commanding influ- 
ence over the denomination, particularly in 
Central and Western New York, his opinions 
carry weight with them, and, doubtless, pass 
current among the uneducated." But let it be 
supposed that Mr. Grosh's opinions pass cur- 
rent not only among the uneducated, but the 
educated also, not only in Central and Western 
New York, but throughout the United States ; 
and still we pronounce Mr. Hatfield's repre- 
sentation unsupported and false. Mr. Grosh 
makes no attempt to prove that suicide is no 
crime, and what is more our author knew this 
when preparing his book; at least he must have 
been aware that he had no evidence of the fact. 
Mr. Grosh did say that he supposed the Scrip- 
tures to regard suicide either under the head of 
murder ; in which case, the penalty, according 
to the law of Moses, is death, and is therefore 
inflicted in the very act of transgression ; 
or else it is considered as the act of 
none who are of sound mind, and therefore ac- 
countable beings. Of the first supposition he 
says, " I am not very sanguine," and adds upon 
the second, what we suppose unquestionable, 
that suicide "seems entirely omitted in the va- 
rious and frequent lists of actions forbidden to 
be practiced." It is upon this that our author 

12 



138 review or hatfield's 

rests to prove that Mr. Grosh believes suicide 
to be no crime ! 

Not quite satisfied with this piece of candor, 
our author goes on to say, " Let the christian 
community look at this one result of the sys- 
tem, and say, can that be from Christ which 
thus encourages men to rush out of life when- 
ever they care to live no longer? — to run away 
from all the duties required of them by God, 
whenever those duties become too burdensome ? 
Surely Universalism hinders no one from death 
if he wishes it." 

And thus among its other criminal tenden- 
cies, Universalism leads to suicide, or at most, 
does not prevent it ! But one fact is worth a 
hundred speculations, and Mr. Hatfield can not 
be ignorant that more suicides have been com- 
mitted within the last ten years in the United 
States, under the influence of endless misery, 
than were ever committed by Universalists in 
the world ! In the midst of revivals of religion, 
so called, insanity and suicide have stalked 
abroad and claimed their victims by the score. 
And yet with this fact staring our author in the 
face, he has the effrontery to charge Universal- 
ism with leading to suicide ! Were he capable 
of blushing at any act of gross injustice, we 
might expect that his cheek would be mantled 
with crimson here. 

For ourselves, we are frank to acknowledge 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 139 

a feeling more of pity than of bitterness toward 
the suicide. With the strong love of life which 
God has implanted in the human heart, we look 
upon the act of self-destruction as at least prima 
Jacie evidence of alienation of mind. Dark 
indeed must the world be, and cheerless the 
prospects held out before the wretched man, 
who can think of lifting his hand to cut the 
thread of his own life. Small must be his con- 
fidence in the wisdom and goodness of the di- 
vine government. Universalism, we know, has 
nothing in it to cherish such feelings, nothing to 
encourage such despondency. It teaches that 
God is infinitely good, and infinitely wise, and 
that every event in his providence is ordered 
for our real well-being and happiness. It 
teaches that weeping may endure for a night, 
but that joy comes in the morning ; and that they 
who sow in tears shall reap in gladness of heart. 
With such a faith, why should the Universalist 
fly to suicide to relieve him from the trials of 
life 1 It is a Father's love and a Father's hand 
which have ordered and arranged them all. Why 
should he wish to shun the duties required of 
him in this world ] They are the duties which 
God has enjoined, and which he acknowledges 
are best for him. In short, it is not the Univer- 
salist under the influence of his faith who com- 
mies suicide, not he who trusts in God and re- 
joices in his goodness and love, but those who 



140 review of hatfield's 

are taught that life is a burden, a state of hard 
and profitless duties, a state of imminent dan- 
gers that extend through eternity ; those who 
look upon God as an enemy, and despair of his 
mercy, and are left to struggle on in the dark- 
ness of this world without the cheering hope of 
a better. The annals of suicide will show that 
in these remarks we have spoken no more than 
the truth ; and that in making the grave charge 
against Universalism that it leads to suicide, 
our author has not merely uttered falsehood, 
but folly. 

Our author proceeds, p. 130, to show, that ac- 
cording to Universalism, Sin is its own punish- 
ment, and fully punislies itself, " By this," says 
he, " they mean that there is such a necessary 
connexion between sin and misery, that every 
sin brings with it enough of misery to serve as 
an adequate punishment." 

It would have been a more accurate represen- 
tation of our views, perhaps, to have said, that 
Universalists recognize a striking anology be- 
tween the physical and moral worlds in this re- 
spect ; that in both, the law of cause and conse- 
quence is invariable. They believe every moral 
action to be a cause, which produces, and accord- 
ing to the economy established in the moral 
world, can not fail of producing, some effects % 
which effects are good or bad, happy or misera- 
ble, as the cause itself is good or evil. In liar- 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 141 

mony with this general idea they look upon sin 
as an evil cause, which, governed as our world 
is, must be followed by evil consequences ; by 
pain, misery, punishment; consequences that can 
not be avoided, and which bribery and prayers 
are alike impotent to turn away. It is this, in 
part at least, that makes sin so fearful, and that 
clothes the divine law with so much terror. Ev- 
ery sin that a man commits, gives birth to a new 
series of evil effects, which God himself has or- 
dained must sooner or later perform their circuit, 
and fall upon him who originated them. For 
six thousand years, man has been struggling 
against this truth, and endeavoring to persuade 
himself that though he sins, yet he shall not 
surely die. He wishes to believe that there is 
no necessary connexion between sin and its pun- 
ishment, and that he may enjoy all the pleasures 
of sin and yet avoid its fearful retribution. That 
the corrupt and godless should thus strive to be- 
lieve, that they should yield a readier credence 
to the subtle falsehoods of the serpent, than to 
the eternal verities of the word of God, ought not 
perhaps, to be thought strange ; but that our au- 
thor, with his great learning and still greater 
piety, by profession a teacher of morality and 
religion, should, in common with them, exhibit 
such an implacable hatred to the plain doctrines 
of the Bible on this subject, must certainly be 
regarded as almost unaccountable. It seems to 

12* 



142 review of hatfield's 

be a strange union and sympathy of the worst 
and best of men, who, while they differ, as we 
charitably hope, in most things, agree like broth- 
ers in this, that it is owing wholly to the sinner's 
folly or carelessness after the fact, if he does not 
escape punishment. The moral influences of 
this doctrine have, in all ages, from that of our 
first parents downwards, been such as might be 
expected of a doctrine which rests on the author- 
ity of the serpent alone, and boldly bids defiance 
to the word of God. We are truly sorry to see 
our friend, the author of " Universalism as it 
is," in such company ; and still more so to see 
the many proofs with which his work abounds, 
of the demoralizing tendency of his pernicious 
faith. Had Mr. Hatfield religiously believed in 
the connexion existing between sin and its pun- 
ishment, we really think that this " Text Book 
of Modern Universalism" would never have been 
written ! We would also suggest for the con- 
sideration of learned divines, whether Papal 
Rome did not found her practice of granting in- 
dulgences on this mischievous error, and whether 
the same thing is not done in reality by Protes- 
tants, though in a somewhat different way. 

The views entertained by Universalists on the 
subject before us, are, as they believe, clearly 
taught in the Sacred Scriptures. They also re- 
gard them as standing in beautiful harmony with 
all known truths, and with every just conception 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 143 

of God's moral government ; and finally* they 
think them fully sustained by all history and ex- 
perience. 

It would seem almost impossible for an en- 
lightened mind to doubt that some connexion is 
established between the moral conduct of an in- 
dividual and his happiness and misery. To 
suppose it otherwise, would be to suppose the 
Creator utterly indifferent, not merely to the 
happiness or misery of his creatures, but also to 
their moral character. But this no man worthy of 
the name of christian will allow. Taking for 
granted, therefore, what all must concede, that 
God has a real interest in the moral well-being 
of his intelligent creation, by what method, let 
us ask, can he best express that interest ? By 
a revelation of himself as a holy 7 God, we shall 
be told, and of his will which is also holy, and 
in which he avows his approbation of what is 
just and good, i. e. of all that is consonant with 
his own perfect nature, and his disapprobation 
of whatever is wrong and sinful, i. e. of all that 
is opposed to his own excellence. This is true ; 
but let it be supposed, as our author seems to do, 
that there is no established and uniform connex- 
ion between holiness and happiness, and sin and 
misery, and that all the consequences of moral 
action are arbitrary, contingent ; or better still, 
perhaps, are left to the determination of mere 
caprice or blind chance ; and what proof have 



144 REVIEW OF HATFIELD'S 

we that this revelation is true or truly interpre- 
ted ? It obviously stands, not only unsupported 
by, but clearly opposed to facts. The case may 
be thus illustrated. Let it be supposed that God 
had revealed to man the method of providing 
for his temporal wants, and among other things 
had instructed him that in order to secure a har- 
vest he must at the proper season, prepare the 
soil and sow the seed, and that he must ever sow 
such as he wished to gather. Now from such a 
revelation would not man have been justified in 
the inference that there was an established law 
in relation to this branch of husbandry which it 
>vas necessary for him to observe, and on the 
observance of which his success and happiness 
depended ? But let it be farther supposed that 
upon experiment and observation, man had dis- 
covered that this inference was wholly without 
grounds ; that there was in fact no invariable 
connexion between the sowing of the seed and 
the other specified conditions, and the reaping 
of the harvest ; and, in short, that it was quite 
immaterial whether the seed was sown in spring 
or autumn, in mid-summer or mid-winter, and 
also whether it was such grain as he desired to 
cultivate or something very different, and finally 
that it was altogether unimportant whether a field 
was sown at all ! Let him see on one hand a 
field prepared and sown with great care, and yet 
produce no harvest ; on the other a field wholly 



UNIVERSALIS!* AS IT IS. 145 

uncultivated, yielding the richest harvest. On 
one side let him see a field sown with cockles 
producing wheat, and on the other, one sown 
with wheat producing some other kind of grain 
or even tares. In fine, let there be no rule, no 
law of cause and effect observable, and what 
could be thought of such a revelation as we have 
supposed ? Could it be regarded as true ; or if 
true, as possessing the slightest value ? 

Now it happens that God has given us pre- 
cisely such a revelation with respect to the con- 
sequences of moral conduct as we have supposed 
on the subject of husbandry. He has taught us 
that " whatsoever a man sozceth, that shall he also 
reap. For he that soweth to the flesh, shall of 
the flesh reap corruption, and he that soweth to 
the spirit, shall of the spirit reap life everlasting." 

We can hardly conceive of a more decisive 
declaration than this, and it can not escape any 
reader that our author's doctrine stands in direct 
opposition to its plain meaning. According to 
his anti-scriptural view of the subject it is by no 
means certain that " whatsoever a man soweth, 
that shall he also reap," for he denies any con- 
stant connexion between crime and punishment 
under the government of God. Hence one may 
sow to the flesh and yet reap the fruits of the 
spirit ; and, we suppose to be consistent, vice 
versa. This, it must be confessed, is a doctrine 
more acceptable to the hardy sinner than to him 



146 review of hatfield's 

who loves righteousness. For the former would 
no doubt be gratified with the idea of living as 
he lists, and at the same time sharing all the 
blessings of well doing ! But would the godly 
man be well pleased with the condemnation and 
sorrows of the wicked ? 

The wise man once rather significantly asked 
the question, " Can a man take fire in his bosom 
and his clothes not be burned ? Can one go 
upon hot coals and his feet not be burned ?" — 
Had our author lived in Solomon's day, the roy- 
al utterer of proverbs would have received an 
emphatical reply in the negative, and a reproof 
for his folly in asking such questions. He would 
also have been instructed how heterodox were 
many of his most beautiful sayings, and how 
much they would tend to the support of Univer- 
salism ! Nay, the whole book of Proverbs must 
have been rejected as of mischievous tendency, 
for the grand design of it all is to set forth by 
way of contrast, the happiness that flows from a 
life of wisdom and virtue on the one hand, and 
on the other, the sufferings and misery of folly 
and crime ; and throughout the whole the sacred 
writer seems quite ignorant of that theology 
which finds so much favor in the eyes of our 
author. 

The prophet Isaiah teaches us that, under all 
the flattering circumstances by which iniquity 
may be surrounded, " There is no peace to the 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 147 

wicked," but that they " are like the troubled 
sea when it can not rest, whose waters cast up 
mire and dirt." And yet our author maintains 
that there is no invariable connexion between 
sin and misery ! 

But we need not pursue this subject farther. 
If the pastor of the Seventh Presbyterian Church 
were as familiar with the doctrines of the Bible 
as he professes to be with those of Universalism, 
he would not have thus arrayed himself against 
its plain teachings and condemned Universalists 
for believing what all God's holy prophets have 
affirmed, that while there is no peace to the 
wicked, there is great peace to those who love 
his law, and nothing shall offend them. 

But our author has several weighty objections 
to our views of the subject. " If punishment," 
says he, " is inseparable from sin as its necessary 
consequence, then it is impossible for the sinner 
to escape his full deserts." True, we reply. 
Then " it follows inevitably," says our author, 
** from this doctrine that all the penalties of hu- 
man latvs ought to be forthwith abolished /" The 
reason is quite obvious to Mr. Hatfield, though 
possibly not so clear to " illiterate" Universal- 
ists. " If," says he, "the sinner can by no means 
escape his just retribution, even if he be above, 
or out of the reach of human laws, what need is 
there of these laws ? Are they not perfectly 
useless % And are not the penalties which they 



148 review or hatfield's 

inflict unjust in the extreme ? What right has hu- 
man authority to punish a man who has already 
been fully punished, or who will be fully punished^ 
whether human power interferes or not, and none 
the less for such interference. To be honest and 
consistent, therefore, Uuniversalists ought to de- 
mand that all penal statutes should be at once re- 
pealed and that society be left to regulate itself. 
Mr. Sawyer says to Mr. Brownlee, ' The time, I 
trust is not far distant when the vindictive and san- 
guinary penalties yet remaining on human statute 
books shall be blotted out for ever? ri 

We thank our old friend for the honor he has 
done us by quoting with so much emphasis the 
remark above ; but sincerely do we pity the 
man, whether christian or savage, who can find 
it in his heart to make such a remark a matter 
of reproach. Who that has the feelings of a man 
does not pray that the vindictive and sanguinary 
^penalties on human statute books may soon be 
blotted out for ever % If our author does not, we 
advise him to leave Christendom, and seek more 
appropriate society and fellowship, in some of 
" the dark places of the earth which are full of 
the habitations of cruelty." But perhaps Mr. 
Hatfield made this quotation for the laudable 
purpose of proving that we are in favor of abol- 
ishing all penal statutes at once. If so the gen- 
tleman is certainly entitled to all the advantage 
which it affords him. 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 149 

But let us turn a moment to the objection 
urged against our views by Mr. H. It is that 
if God has so ordered it, that sin and its punish- 
ment are indissolubly connected, and that no 
sinner can rationally flatter himself with the 
hope of impunity, then all human laws and pun- 
ishments are useless, and worse than useless, 
are unjust in the extreme, in as much as men 
assume the right to punish their guilty fellows 
when God has ordained that they shall be fully 
punished according to their true deserts. Will 
Mr. H. allow us here to ask one or two ques- 
tions 1 Is human government a divine ordinance, 
divine so far as it is in harmony with the eternal 
principles of equity and truth ? If it is, then it 
makes a part of the divine administration, and 
its penalties, so far as they are just, are foreseen 
and embraced in the government of God. It is 
but " a wheel within a wheel," and to argue as 
our author does, betrays no little inconsideration. 
But if he maintains that human government is 
something which, is in itself, wholly foreign to 
the government of God, and which the latter 
does not contemplate at all, then we leave him 
to settle the matter with St. Paul, who declares 
that " there is no power but of God ; the powers 
that be are ordained of God," and that the civil ru- 
ler " is the minister of God, a revenger to execute 
wrath upon him that doeth evil." True, human 
governments are imperfect. They often fail of 

13 



150 REVIEW OF HATFIELD'S 

detecting and bringing the guilty to punishment ; 
they often err in their judgments, and exceed as 
well as fall short in their inflictions. But when 
we remember that God ruleth among the nations, 
we have no reason to fear that he will not rectify 
all errors and see that every man is rewarded 
according to his works. But our author, who 
believes that " all the miseries of this life, death 
itself, and the pains of hell for ever" are only 
an adequate punishment for the most trivial sin 
that man can commit, nay that it is no more 
than the infant deserves for having been born 
the child of Adam, is strangely fearful lest the 
poor sinner should be punished unjustly ! He 
thinks that if a robber, for instance, would be ad- 
equately punished, although he should escape 
all human justice, then if he had been appre- 
hended, imprisoned, and tortured, he must, of 
course, have received more than he deserved ! 
" Yes," says he, " if Universalism is true, every 
positive infliction of suffering by any human au- 
thority, whether parental or magisterial, as a 
punishment for wrong doing, is unjust and cruel. 

Yea, the statute hook of heaven needs revision 

This system either denies that God ever does 
visit men with positive infliction of pain, other 
than the natural effects of sin, or maintains that 
he is guilty of the most outrageous injustice in 
exacting double for their sins." 

In answer to all this, it is only necessary to 



UN1VERSALISM A3 IT IS. 151 

say that TJniversalists have neither maintained 
nor do they believe that God punishes a second 
time those who have been adequately punished 
before ; but merely that God's veracity and jus- 
tice both stand pledged that he that doeth wrong 
shall receive for the wrong which he hath done, 
arid that the wicked shall not go unpunished. 
We have no war about words. We call that 
punishment necessary which God has said should 
be inflicted, and it stands intimately connected 
with the sin which calls it down upon the head 
of the offender, whether we are able to perceive 
that connexion or not. 

But our author meets with another difficulty 
in our views on this subject. If punishment is 
invariably connected with sin, he thinks that the 
punishment ought to increase in proportion to 
the sin. This he concedes to be true so far as 
the body is concerned, but maintains that on the 
point of mental suffering, remorse and anguish, 
this scheme naturally leads to the conclusion that 
the more one sins the less lie is punished ! " We 
know," he says, " many of us by our own ex- 
perience, [the book before us is proof of this,] 
that what gave us at first great distress, because 
of the remorse that we felt, has afterwards, when 
it became habitual lost its power to disturb our 
minds." And he asks, " How can that be called 
an adequate punishment which decreases in 
severity as the sinner increases in guilt ?" Ac- 



152 

cording to this mode of reasoning our author 
should have perceived that he refutes himself ; 
for if habitual crime so hardens the heart and 
sears the conscience that the sinner constantly 
suffers less and less, the result must be that he 
will ultimately cease to suffer altogether, or suf- 
fer so little as to be of no account. The doctrine 
of endless remorse and mental suffering is then 
out of the question ; and our author must return 
to the ancient but now almost obsolete dogma of 
material fire and brimstone. Hell of course may 
be a place of intolerable bodily suffering, but it 
can hardly be called a place of punishment, be- 
cause punishment implies a consciousness of suf- 
fering for sin, which according to our subtle 
author the sinner will feel less and less through 
eternity ! 

The truth is, and we wonder he has not per- 
ceived it, that sin tends to injure all our moral 
susceptibilities, our moral enjoyments as well as 
sufferings. The habitual sinner may not feel so 
keenly the remorse consequent upon a base ac- 
tion as the christian, but neither does he know 
any thing of the pleasures of penitence and god- 
ly sorrow, nor is he qualified to share in any of 
the more refined enjoyments of society and life. 
He is a stranger to peace of mind and the hap- 
piness which a good man chiefly seeks, and like 
the poor prodigal in a far country, he would fain 
fill himself with the husks which the swine eat. 



T7NIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 153 

If his heart is hardened and his conscience sear- 
ed, let that not be thought a trifling punishment, 
for what greater evil could a moral being, so 
qualified for intellectual and moral happiness, 
suffer'? We regard it as one of the chief curses 
of sin that it produces this very hardness of heart 
and callousness of conscience. Bitter indeed is 
the penalty which such a one suffers, and fearful 
the retribution which the habitual sinner brings 
down upon his head. The case as relates to the 
conscience, is much the same we suspect as it is 
to the body. The man guilty of an occasional 
debauch may suffer more acutely perhaps than 
the habitual drunkard, but who would argue 
hence that he suffers more, and that it is only 
necessary for him to keep drunk constantly in 
order to escape all the evils of his intemperance ? 

But our views of the certainty of punishment 
according to our author, completely " shuts the 
Savior out ;" for let it be understood that the pas- 
tor of the Seventh Presbyterian Church has no 
use for a Savior but just to save sinners from the 
punishment of their sins ! ! This was the sublime 
object of the mission of Jesus Christ ! He came 
to save the wicked from the justice of their heav- 
enly Father ! Truly this is a most beautiful the- 
ology ! 

The subject deserves a more ample discussion 
than we are permitted to give it here, and we 
therefore recommend it to the perusal and more 

13* 



154 

impartial consideration of our author. And we 
would suggest for his profit, and to make him a 
little more modest and charitable, that a man 
holding such views as his own on the subject of 
punishment, would show his good sense by treat- 
ing others,who have the best of reasons for differ- 
ing from him, with a small share, at least, of 
common and decent respect, and their opinions 
with such candor as imperfect beings, such as 
we all are, may justly claim from one another. 

It will be remembered that Mr. Hatfield has 
before convicted Universalists of believing that 
God renders to every man according to his works, 
and that in the moral world sin and its punish- 
ment are so indissolubly linked together, that 
under the equitable administration of the divine 
government, no transgressor can reasonably hope 
to escape the just retributions of Heaven. To 
the exhibition of this peculiar feature of our faith, 
our learned author has devoted no less than twen- 
ty three pages of the volume before us. And 
having accomplished this great task to his entire 
satisfaction, what should our supple writer do 
but turn upon his heel, and startle his readers 
with the unexpected announcement that accor- 
ding to Universalism, " there is properly no such 
thing as punishment M in the universe ! ! ! 

It may be conjectured that this is only one of 
our author's own inferences and not an avowed 
doctrine of Universalism. But in this our read- 



UNIVERSALIS*! AS IT IS. 155 

ers arc sadly mistaken. They are now, proba- 
bly for the first time, to learn that this " is an 
essential part " of the Universalist scheme, u and 
an avowed article of their creed." After accu- 
sing us of disallowing that " sin is exceeding sin- 
ful/' and of scarcely allowing " that the human 
mind, (or intellectual phenomena, as they call 
the soul,) ever consents to sin," — after accusing 
us of regarding sin as " a fulfilment of God's 
will," and of thus converting " sin into right- 
eousness," the Reverend author of " Universal- 
ism as it is," p. 148 goes on to say that " this 
strange system, after all its boasting about the 
full exaction of punishment, does actually deny 
all punishment^ in the proper sense of the word. 
Such is the necessary inference from those parts 
of their creed which have already come under 
review. We are not left, however, to inference 
alone, in order thus to understand them. I shall 
now attempt to show that it is an essential part 
of their system, and an avowed article of their 
creed, that there is properly no such thing as 

PUNISHMENT." 

A reader gifted with but a very meagre por- 
tion of common sense would be apt to ask here, 
whether Universalists as a denomination are so 
intensely stupid as to maintain, on the one hand 
that there is " no escape from punishment," and 
on the other that " there is properly no such 
thing as punishment " at all ? And yet a grave 



156 REVIEW OF HATFIELD'S 

and reverend author, most deeply learned, accor- 
ding to his own showing, in all the mysteries of 
our faith, has labored zealously to exhibit us in 
this unenviable light. We trust it will be regar- 
ded, therefore, as no harsh judgment when we 
say that either the hundreds of thousands com- 
posing the Universalist denomination are almost 
unparalleled fools, or else the pastor of the Sev- 
enth Presbyterian Church must have strangely 
misunderstood or perverted the truth ! 

It will be seen that Mr. Hatfield attempts to 
cover himself from the charge of misrepresenta- 
tion by so wording his statement that its truth or 
falsehood rests wholly on his own definition of 
punishment. He says it is an avowed article of 
our creed that "there is properly no such thing 
as punishment," or that our system " does actu- 
ally deny all punishment, in the proper sense of 
the word" Hence we are left to infer that Uni- 
versalists differ essentially from our author in 
their opinions of what punishment is. This Mr. 
Hatfield acknowledges. On p. 148, he con- 
cedes that if our definition of punishment is cor- 
rect our conclusions on the subject are just ; and 
the Universalist alone believes in the full pun- 
ishment of sin ; " but," says he, " if we are gov- 
erned by the universally-received sense of the 
word, as well as by that which is given to it in 
the Bible, it becomes apparent at once, that this 
theorist denies all punishment." 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 157 

The first question then, which arises here, con- 
cerns the fundamental idea of punishment. The 
word is well defined to mean u any pain or suf- 
fering inflicted on a person for a crime or offence, 
by the authority to which the offender is sub- 
ject." This clearly expresses the essential na- 
ture of punishment, but it does not go far enough 
to reach the point now in debate. All persons 
agree in calling the " pain or suffering inflicted 
on a person for a crime or offence, punishment, 
without discriminating between the benevolence 
or malignancy with which this suffering may be 
inflicted. A despot punishes his subjects in an 
arbitrary manner, and with a vindictive spirit, 
perhaps merely for the gratification of his own 
passions ; and a good father punishes his child 
in love, and for the best good of the child itself. 
In both cases the punishment consists in pain or 
suffering inflicted on account of some crime or 
offence. 

Now if our author means to say that Univer- 
salists deny the existence of punishment in this 
u universally-received sense of the word," he 
says what is utterly groundless and false, for he 
can appeal, we will venture to assert, to no 
Universalist ancient or modern, who has called 
punishment, thus defined, in question. The only 
ground of difference on this subject between us 
and our author, then, relates to the causes for 
which God punishes, or in other words the ends 



158 REVIEW OF HATFIELD'S 

which God would attain by his punishments. 
Unfortunately Mr. Hatfield has not been very 
explicit in the statement of his own views, and 
we are therefore left to draw them, in a some- 
what unsatisfactory way, from the consideration 
of what he condemns in the views of Universal- 
ists. Let us glance at two or three points. 

Universalists maintain that " God is love" 
and that his various attributes are but modifica- 
tions of this essence of his being. Hence they 
conclude with the best theologians of all sects, 
that the divine justice is but love, employing a 
peculiar means for the manifestation of itself, 
and for the attainment of its own ends. They 
believe that when the Scriptures ascribe punish- 
ment to the anger , wrath, fury, vengeance, etc. 
etc. of God, they do it only in accordance with 
popular phraseology \ and that such language can- 
not be rationally interpreted in a manner to make 
God the subject of the worst passions which 
sway the human mind. They regard the Al- 
mighty, therefore, as not only a just judge but a 
loving father, who " doth not afflict willingly, 
nor grieve the children of men," who in judg- 
ment remembers mercy, and punishes his erring 
creatures, not because he hates them, and de- 
lights in making them miserable, but because he 
loves them and would do them good. While 
our earthly parents often chastise us for their 
own pleasure, our Father in heaven is represent- 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 159 

ed as chastening us for our profit that we might 
be partakers of his holiness. 

To these views our author strongly excepts. 
He seems to regard the sufferings which man- 
kind endure as an expression of God's anger, 
and objects to the idea that they are fruits of a 
father's concern for the welfare of his children, 
and the good of the sinner himself. He will not 
believe that the punishments which God inflicts 
are designed to benefit the punished, and are in- 
flicted from merely parental principles. He de- 
murs to the thought that " God himself has no 
right to punish in revenge or with a vindictive 
spirit." He objects to the Bible truth that " all 
men are the children of God," and asks what 
man who " has ever read ten pages of the word 
of God has not discovered that ' the children of 
the devil,' are not the ' children of God.' " 

From all this we infer on no very uncertain 
grounds that punishment, according to our au- 
thor, is the infliction of misery on the sinner ', from 
feelings, the same in the divine mind as, or analo- 
gous to, human anger and revenge, tvithout the 
slightest regard to the good of the punished, but 
rather with a lively pleasure in his sufferings* 
Perhaps we err in thus understanding our author, 
and most happy should we feel to be convinced 
that his views are more in accordance with the 
word of God than he has left us to infer. For 
under his implied definition, punishment can 



160 REVIEW OF HATFIELD'S 

never flow from love, but must always take its 
source in some of the darkest and most malig- 
nant passions that belong to human nature. 
Consequently punishment cannot be inflicted by 
any truly good being, nor for any benevolent pur- 
pose. True, our author does concede that God 
may afflict the righteous for their good, but this 
is a strange work with him, and is kept within 
very narrow limits. Hence it happens that the 
promises are addressed to the righteous, while 
the learnings and tlireats are reserved for the 
wicked. By this means our author is enabled 
to illustrate the mystical meaning of the apostle's 
question, " Doth a fountain send forth at the 
same place, sweet water and bitter ?" Towards 
the righteous the Almighty is all love, and his 
dispensations are all framed in infinite mercy, 
but toward the wicked he is all hatred and wrath, 
burning with fury and revenge. It is by over- 
looking this fact and " by thus confounding 
things which diner," says Mr. Hatfield, and ap- 
plying to all mankind passages addressed only 
to the righteous, they, (Universalists) make it 
out that God afflicts men only for their good, and 
that suffering has not in fact in any case the na- 
ture of punishment !" But if such is our au- 
thor's definition of punishment, how are we to 
account for his calling it " the universally-recei- 
ved sense of the word !• • Mr. Hatfield cannot, 
we trust, be ignorant, that his views on the sub- 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 161 

ject have, perhaps in no age, been universally 
received, and in the most enlightened periods of 
the christian church have been widely rejected. 
Dr. Knapp says that " the true final cause of the 
divine judgments upon men, is, their moral im- 
provement; and in this respect it may be said, 
with entire truth, that the penal justice of God 
is his goodness, wisely proportioned to the capa- 
city of its objects. But it is not the improvement 
of those only whom he punishes, which God in- 
tends in the judgments which he inflicts ; but 
that of others also, who may take warning from 

these examples. ,, " Just at that point 

where punishment ceases to be salutary to the 
person who endures it, however salutary it may 
be to others as an example, just at that point 
does it become an evidence of the ignorance and 
imperfection of those by whom it is inflicted." 
The same learned author tells us that the justice 
and holiness of God both stand in close connex- 
ion with the divine benevolence ; they may be de- 
duced from it, and indeed " must be regarded as 
expressions of it." Justice an expression of be- 
nevolence ! This is as bad as Universalism. On 
another page he speaks still more plainly. " Since 
God has no other end but to promote the wel- 
fare of his creatures, he acts, even when he pro- 
ceeds with justice, at the same time benevolently : 
and even those things which we call evils and 
punishments, from the manner in which they af- 

14 



162 review of hatfield's 

i 

feet us, are only so many results and proofs of 
the divine goodness." Such men as Leibnitz, 
Wolf, Baumgarten, Bishop Butler, President 
Dvvight, and many others both at home and 
abroad, trace the divine justice to the benevo- 
lence of God as its ground, and of course can- 
not consistently believe the punishments which 
it inflicts as other than expressions of love. Bish- 
op Butler remarks that " we have no clear con- 
ception of any positive moral attribute in the Su- 
preme Being, but what may be resolved up into 
goodness ;" and maintains that this is the na- 
tural and just object of the greatest fear to an ill 
man. " Malice," says he, " may be appeased 
or satiated ; humor may change ; but goodness 
is a fixed, steady, immoveable principle of action. 
If either of the former holds the sword of justice, 
there is plainly ground for the greatest of crimes 
to hope for impunity. But if it be goodness, 
there can be no possible hope, whilst the reason 
of things, or the ends of government, call for 
punishment." In like manner President D wight 
contends that " love constitutes the whole moral 
character of God, and although we are obliged, 
for the sake of distinctness, to consider, as the 
Scriptures often do, this character in different 
views, and under different names ; yet it is in 
reality a disposition simple and indivisible : these 
names denoting only its different modifications 
and exercises." Punishment is of course a part 



UNIVERSALIS M AS IT IS. 163 

of goodness, and must itself be good, for " love 
worketh no ill to its neighbor." Dr. D wight 
indeed reasons that " as God is benevolent, it is 
impossible that he should not be just." 

Our readers will now see that the very views 
of Universalists which the Pastor of the Seventh 
Presbyterian Church so unceremoniously con- 
demns, have been maintained, in their elements 
at least, by many of the best divines in Christen- 
dom. His notions may be more popular, as they 
are lower, and best harmonize with the concep- 
tions and conduct of vulgar minds. 

It is not to be denied by any man believing 
the Bible that " God is love," that he loves sin- 
ners, loves his enemies and the whole world ; and 
that as he is without variableness or the shadow 
of turning, he must continue to love his intelligent 
creation for ever. It matters not how severe or 
protracted the punishments may be which he sees 
fit to inflict ; one thing is certain, and that is, 
that these punishments can never go beyond his 
goodness, can never be opposed to his love. 
Where they cease to be fruits of his love, they 
must also cease to be of God. From this broad 
ground we cannot be driven till the revelation 
made by Jesus Christ is proved false, and God 
is shown to be an angry, vindictive being, as un- 
like " the father of our Lord and Savior Jesus 
Christ," who is good unto all, who u is kind 
even to the unthankful and to the evil," as our 



164 REVIEW OF HATFIELD'S 

author's views are unlike those which he con- 
demns. Universalists will still believe with But- 
ler, Dwight, etc. etc. that God is just, because he 
is good, and that he punishes his creatures as a 
father, and not as a merciless despot, who seeks 
his own happiness or glory in the wretchedness 
of his subjects or children. 

We trust our readers will now clearly see the 
folly or wickedness of our author in the stupid 
or malicious accusation that we " deny all pun- 
ishment, in the proper sense of the term." It 
betrays a gross ignorance, not merely of Uni- 
versalism, but of the opinions of many among 
the most enlightened orthodox theologians ; or 
else a suppression of his knowledge for no very 
honorable purpose. Mr. Hatfield knows, or 
should know, that to believe God to be a being 
who punishes his moral creatures, it is not ne- 
cessary to ascribe to him the character and mo- 
tives of the devil, and it would do our author no 
harm to reflect that such representations as he 
has made on the subject are illy calculated to do 
modern orthodoxy a service. The interests of 
that indefined and indefinable something, so call- 
ed, are not, in this age, to be promoted by vices 
which outrage our moral nature, and stripping 
God himself of every trace of his divinity, leave 
him an object of mingled hatred and fear, an 
omnipotence indeed, but an omnipotence opera- 
ting to no good end. 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 165 

Whether from an innate love of absurdity, or 
from some other cause even less worthy than 
that, our author seems to delight in nothing 
more than in representing the opinions of Uni- 
versalists as self-contradictoiy. Our readers 
have just seen one exhibition of this ruling pas- 
sion. His next chapter opens with another. — 
He maintains that " instead of teaching univer- 
sal salvation, Universalism denies all salva- 
tion! ! V 

To understand the full force and the wit of 
this assertion, it is only necessary for the reader 
to remember that the pastor of the Seventh 
Presbyterian Church, is at perfect liberty to 
define words just as he pleases, and then to con- 
vict Universalists of contradiction, absurdity, 
rank infidelity or whatever else he chooses, on 
the strength of such a definition. For instance, 
he defines punishment to mean the infliction of 
pain, without any love or regard for the inter- 
ests or happiness of the punished ; and of course, 
according to Universalism, " there is no such 
thing as punishment " under the moral admin- 
istration of our heavenly Father. In the case 
immediately before us, Mr. Hatfield in like 
manner defines salvation to be the freeing of 
one from deserved punishment, and nothing else, 
and consequently Universalists deny all salva- 
tion, because they are so stupidly attached to 
the Bible as to believe that " though hand join 

14* 



166 REVIEW OF HATFIELD S 

in hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished." 
But this, it must be confessed, is but a sorry 
way of opposing Universalism. If Mr. Hatfield 
wrote, as he pretends, for " students in theol- 
ogy " and his " ministering brethren," he cer- 
tainly paid their intelligence and candor a very 
poor compliment. Does he, can he think them 
so ignorant or bigoted as to regard this perpet- 
ual begging of the question as creditable either 
to his talents or the cause that he wishes to 
maintain % 

The object of the present chapter of our au- 
thor's work is to show that Universalists deny 
the atonement. And here again we have our au- 
thor's definition foisted in and made the stand- 
ard by which to try our faith. He takes the 
word atonement in its old theological sense — 
a sense in which it is never used in the New 
Testament — a sense now very widely rejected 
by the religious world, and especially by the 
party with which he is reckoned and acts, and 
then, forsooth, condemns poor Universalists^ 
without judge or jury, of denying the atone- 
ment, because they do not entertain the same 
notions on the subject as were entertained cen- 
turies ago by men no more enlightened or infal- 
lible, perhaps, than themselves. 

Our author has occupied no less than 17 pa- 
ges of his work in showing how Universalists 
deny the atonement, and maintain that Christ saves 



UNI VERS ALISM AS IT IS. 167 

no one from any deserved suffering. That 
" Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the 
law," says he, p. 154, " is orthodoxy, is Chris- 
tianity. This is the peculiarity of the gospel. 
This is its power and glory. Take this away 
and the gospel is gone." 

He first shows how sadly we have " degene- 
rated" from our fathers, Murray, Winchester, 
Chauncy, and Huntington. According to Mr. 
Hatfield, they were in the main orthodox ; and 
yet it seems they were as grossly misrepresent- 
ed and abused as their degenerate followers, 
and by the same class of gentlemen too ! 

He next goes to the proof of our denial of 
the atonement. To this good work he devotes 
page after page. He shows from many authors, 
and one " Hosea Ballou, Jr." among the rest, 
that according to Universalism, " Christ saves 
no one from endless misery ;" then, that " Christ 
saves no one from any deserved punishment, either 
Jiere or hereafter ;" and finally, that the suffer- 
ings and death of Christ " were not designed to 
placate the wrath or satisfy the justice of God" 
Having established these several allega- 
tions, our author proceeds to draw his con- 
clusion. " The reader," he says, "will at once 
see that this view of the case, entirely ' ex- 
plodes ' the common doctrine of the atonement. 
There is no room here for the idea that Christ, 
a superior being, took the place of man, and 



168 REVIEW OF HATFIELD'S 

suffered as in his stead, as his substitute, for the 
sake of the guilty — the just for the unjust. — 
Their denial of this doctrine is plain, direct and 
unqualified. They take no pains to conceal it." 

In all this our author has done us no more than 
justice. But when he proceeds so far as to de- 
nounce our views as "utterly Anti-Christian," 
and as subversive of the whole gospel scheme, 
it might be well for him to remember that " the 
common doctrine of the atonement" is not ne- 
cessarily true, and that, therefore, it may be 
denied without either calling in question, or 
putting to the hazard, the gospel of Jesus Christ. 
There is one important lesson for Mr. Hatfield 
yet to learn, and that is, that " orthodoxy," so 
called, and Christianity, are by no means one 
and the same thing ! 

That Christ Jesus came into th e world to do 
the will of his Father in seeking and saving that 
which was lost, all christians agree. That he 
labored and taught, suffered and died for us, 
for our sakes, in our behalf, has been believed 
in all ages of the church. That he is our great 
Teacher, our glorious Exemplar, and our Savior 
from ignorance, sin and death, has also been 
almost universally acknowledged. And in all 
this Universalists most fully believe and most 
heartily rejoice. They wish to regard him in 
their hearts, as under God, their greatest Ben- 
efactor, and they strive to cultivate in their 



UNIVERSALIS*! AS IT IS. 169 

souls such gratitude and love toward him as be- 
long to no other being but that One Supreme 
Being, whom the risen Jesus himself called his 
Father and our Father, his God and our 
God. 

But that Christ was a substitute for man, that 
he died to appease the wrath of God, and to re- 
concile him to his sinful creatures, or to screen 
man from endless misery, or any punishment which 
lie justly deserved, we do not believe ; nor are 
such doctrines to be proved from the Scriptures, 
nor found in the writings of the early fathers of 
the church. The New Testament teaches very 
distinctly that Christ came from God, to speak 
God's word, and to do God's work. Was it 
wrath or love that sent him forth from the bosom 
of the Father % He who does not know, knows 
nothing of the Gospel. Christ's whole mission 
and ministry were of love. His death is men- 
tioned by the apostle, as emphatically, an ex- 
hibition of the love of God. " God com- 
mendeth his love toward us in that while we 
were yet sinners Christ died for us." But it 
was not merely to commend the divine love 
that our Savior died. This was only a means. 
The end was to reconcile us to God. We had 
been enemies by wicked works, and he came 
to reconcile and bring us to God. Observe, it 
was not to " reconcile the Father to us" as the 
Protestant creeds express it, but on the contrary 



170 REVIEW OF HATFIELD'S 

to reconcile us to the Father, " God was in 
Christ reconciling the world to himself." We 
are "reconciled to God;" we have " received 
the atonement" i. e. the reconciliation. 

" The common doctrine of the atonement" 
contradicts the whole Scripture representation. 
It makes God an enemy to the sinner, and 
therefore renders some extraordinary means 
necessary to placate his wrath ! It maintains 
that nothing but the death of his own beloved 
Son, or the endless torments of his creatures 
could satisfy the divine justice. As if the death 
of the innocent could atone for the sins of the 
guilty! As if God's justice could allow such a 
substitution ! Conceive one moment of our Na- 
tional Government setting Gibbs,the pirate free, 
and hanging the Rev. Dr. Spring, or Bishop 
Onderdonk in his stead ! ! What satisfaction 
to justice would that be : or rather what kind of 
justice is that which could be thus satisfied *? 
The divine justice is more scrupulous and more 
equitable than that. It requires that he " that 
doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong which 
he hath done" and that without respect of per- 
sons. 

A moderate share of attention to the language 
of the New Testament, accompanied with a 
christian love of the truth and a good degree of 
freedom from prejudice, must convince every 
mind that it was the love of God to the world 



UNIVERSALIS*! AS IT IS. 171 

which caused the atonement ; and not the 
atonement which brought God to love sinners. 
The Savior and his apostles, and modern creed- 
makers, stand as widely apart, on this subject, 
as the poles. The latter have boldly reversed 
the whole order established by the former. And 
now the pastor of the Seventh Presbyterian 
Church thinks it becomes him to denounce us as 
" anti-christian" because we cleave to Christ, 
because we are disposed to follow his doctrines 
rather than the theories and commandments of 
men. 

We advise our author to make himself better 
acquainted with the history of this doctrine be- 
fore he again indulges In his denunciatory 
spirit. He will learn that the idea of Christ 
being a substitute in the modern sense of the 
word, of his undergoing the penalty of our sins, 
and reconciling God to us, and saving us from 
the claims of justice, made no part of primitive 
Christianity. If Dr. Muenscher may be believ- 
ed, no Father of the first three centuries, has 
expressed the doctrine of a satisfaction, made 
to the divine justice by Jesus Christ in the 
stead of men. This doctrine, now regarded as 
all important, and which our author suggests 
"is orthodoxy — is Christianity" was never fully 
developed, till after the reformation. No allu- 
sion is made to it in the creed called the Apos- 
tles, The Nicene merely says what all chris- 



172 REVIEW OF HATFIELD'S 

tians believe that Christ " was crucified for us," 
while the Athanasian only declares in equally- 
general terms that he " suffered for our salva- 
tion." Under Luther and his adherents and 
co-workers a theory in many respects now 
sprung up, as unscriptural if not as licentious 
in its tendency as the then reigning system of 
the Papal Church. The substitution and satis- 
faction of Christ became the all in all of Prot- 
estant doctrine. The sins of our whole race or 
of the elect were imputed to Christ, and God 
was represented as regarding him for the time 
being as the greatest sinner in the universe, 
and pouring out the vials of his intolerable 
wrath without mixture upon his head. Such 
views have been becoming more and more 
moderate, and can now hardly be said to exist 
unless indeed our author may chance to enter- 
tain them. An orthodox writer, T. W. Jenkyn, 
whose work is now lying before me, says, that 
" the hypothesis of a literal infliction of the 
penalty on the person of Christ, destroys the 
benevolence and weakens the authority of the 
divine government. It supposes that the divine 
government would not admit of any diminution 
of misery, or any accession of happiness in the 
universe. It must have every iota and tittle of 
the misery incurred, whether by the person of 
the offender himself, or by his substitute." The 
following paragraph from the pages of the same 



IWIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 173 

orthodox writer, we recommend to the serious 
consideration of Mr. Hatfield. " When the 
atonement is represented as exciting in God 
an inclination to be merciful, and as producing a 
disposition to love, it is in other words, adding 
a new perfection to God, of which the absurdity 
and the blasphemy are equal. God gave his 
Son to be an atonement, because he had loved 
the world, and redemption is through the blood 
of his Son, according to the riches of his grace." 
To borrow the expressive mode of speech 
adopted by our author "What more could a 
Universalist have said V* Does not Mr. Jen- 
kyn deny " the common doctrine of the atone- 
ment ?" 

It will be seen from what has gone before, 
that the charge brought by Mr. Hatfield, that 
Universalists deny the atonement, is true or false, 
just as the prevailing orthodoxy, or the Bible, is 
taken for the standard of truth. We do deny 
that " common doctrine of atonement " which 
our author professes to hold, but it is not true, 
in any sense whatever, that we deny the Scrip- 
ture doctrine of atonement. 

From this point our author turns to another 
closely connected with it, viz : the sufferings of 
Christ, and maintains that, according to Univer- 
salism, " there was nothing peculiar in the suf- 
ferings of Christ." 

We need not remark that this declaration is 
15 



174 review of hatfield's 

In itself exceedingly ambiguous; and unfortu- 
nately our author has by no means explained 
its import. As far as we are able to gather his 
meaning, however, he maintains that Christ's 
sufferings were peculiar in their degree, and also 
in their causes and ends ; in all which respects, 
he attempts to show that we are " of the con- 
trary part." 

In regard to the degree of Christ's sufferings, 
it must be obvious that they were human or su- 
perhuman, such as human nature could or could 
not endure. It is believed by many that the 
sufferings of Christ were not only superhuman, 
but indeed infinite. In an orthodox treaties on 
the atonement, now before us, the writer says : 
" The sufferings of Christ were indeed infinite, 
not simply in intensity of agony, but as they 
were the sufferings of a person of infinite dig- 
nity and worth." Jenkyn on Atonement, p. 
46. This is not, perhaps, an uncommon repre- 
tentation, but it seems to overlook entirely the 
fact that to ascribe suffering to God is absurd. 
The very idea of an infinite being precludes all 
thought of his suffering. But it is very obvious 
that no being but God is infinite, and conse- 
quently no other being could endure infinite 
sufferings. Such is a consequence of unscrip- 
tural modes of representation. To one who 
adopts the opinion that Christ's sufferings were 
in any proper sense infinite, the whole phrase- 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 175 

ology of the New Testament must appear ex- 
ceedingly jejune and flat. 

The great Calvin maintains a still harsher and 
more abhorrent opinion. He says plainly, that 
" if Christ had merely died a corporeal death, 
no end would have been accomplished by it ; 
it was requisite, also, that he should feel the 
severity of the divine vengeance, in order to ap- 
pease the wrath of God, and satisfy his justice. 
Hence it was necessary for him to contend with 
the powers of hell, and the horrors of eternal 

death He was made a substitute and 

surety for transgressors, and even treated as a 
criminal himself, to sustain all the punishments 

which would have been inflicted on them 

Therefore it is no wonder if he be said to have 
descended into hell, since he suffered that death 
which the wrath of God inflicts on transgres- 
sors The relation of those suffering^ of 

Christ which were visible to men, is properly 
followed by that invisible and incomprehensible 
vengeance which he suffered from the hand of 
God, in order to assure us that not only the body 
of Christ was given as the price of our redemp- 
tion, but that there was another greater and 
more excellent ransom, since he suffered in his 
soul the dreadful torments of a person con- 
demned and irretrievably lost." Institutes, B. 
ii. C. xvi— 10. 

It need not be said how foreign this whole re- 



\ 

176 review of Hatfield's 

presentation is from that of the Scriptures. — 
According to Calvin, the " corporeal death of 
Christ " is nothing, and yet it is this to which 
the inspired writers perpetually appeal, as the 
means of our redemption. If the apostles 
meant what they said, " we are reconciled to 
God by the death of his Son ;" we have redemp- 
tion through his blood, are purchased by his blood, 
are justified and enabled to enter into the holi- 
est by the blood of Jesus ; so Christ " bore our 
sins in his body on the tree," and we are sanc- 
tified " through the offering of the body of Je- 
sus." So likewise was Christ " for the suffering 
of death crowned with glory and honor." He 
himself taught that he was the good shepherd 
who " giveth his life for the sheep," and that 
this was the highest proof of his concern for 
them. In the same manner his death is men- 
tioned by St. Paul as the strongest commenda- 
tion of the love of God ; " in that while we 
were yet sinners, Christ died for us." The 
same apostle speaks, too, of Christ's humbling 
himself and becoming obedient to death, even 
the death of the cross," and adds, " Wherefore 
God also hath highly exalted him and given him 
a name which is above every name," &c. " He 
tasted death for every man, he became a par- 
taker of flesh and blood that through death he 
might destroy him that hath the power of death, 
that is the devil." But enough. This is the 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS* 177 

constant language of the New Testament. The 
Lord's Supper was instituted as a memorial of 
himself through the emblems of hisbody broken 
and his blood shed, for the putting away of sins. 
The last words that fell from the lips of the Son 
of God were, "It is finished." Clearly ex- 
pressing that the work of redemption was now 
consummated. 

Now death is a peculiar thing in our world, 
and with its terrors and agonies under the mul- 
tiplied circumstances in which it is experienced, 
form a comprehensible, and perhaps we may 
say a definite idea of suffering. We know that 
this suffering has its measures, it may be greater 
or less in particular instances, but it is necessa- 
rily finite and limited. 

But if the prevailing theology be true, the 
mere death of Christ is of all things the most 
worthless. In this death, however great the 
sufferings might be, it was the human nature 
that suffered. It was the body that died. But 
by this, according to Calvin and his followers, 
" no end would have been accomplished " had 
he not subsequently suffered " the severity of 
the divine vengeance, and contended with the 
powers of hell and the horrors of eternal death," 
or " the dreadful torments of a person con- 
demned and irretrievably lost ! ! " 

And yet, strange as the fact may seem, while 
the Scriptures speak constantly of Christ's suf- 

15* 



178 review of Hatfield's 

ferings and death as the means of our salvation, 
no allusion is any where made to, not a hint is 
given of, these infinite torments, these horrors 
of eternal death, V upon which men are rash 
enough to predicate the whole work of redemp- 
tion ! 

An appeal is sometimes made by the advo- 
cates of human creeds to Christ's agony in the 
garden for proof of his superhuman sufferings. 
Some have ascribed that agony to the immediate 
agency of the devil, who is supposed by them 
to have been let loose upon the Son of G-od in 
this fearful hour and permitted to fill his mind 
with horrors ; others have ascribed it immedi- 
ately to the hand of God, who there wrung the 
heart of his beloved Son with a sense of the di- 
vine wrath inflicted upon him as the substitute 
of sinners, and tortured him with the agonies of 
hell ! With respect to the first hypothesis, it 
is enough to say that it is utterly destitute of 
any foundation in Scripture, and is given up by 
the most judicious theologians of all classes. — 
As to the second, it is clearly disproved by our 
Saviour's assertion, " He that sent me is with 
me, the Father hath not left me alone ; for I 
do always those things that please him ;" and 
by the fact that in this very agony an angel was 
sent by the Father to strengthen him. Dr. 
Whitby maintains with great strength of reason 
that Christ could not lie under the sense of any 



UNIVERSALIS*! AS IT IS. 179 

anger or indignation God had conceived against 
him, nor any doubtings of his Father's love. — 
And Dr. Bloomfleld observes, " That the agony- 
was occasioned (as some suppose) through the 
divine wrath, by our Redeemer thus bearing the 
sins of the world, is liable to many objections, 
as is also the opinion that our Lord then had a 
severe conflict with the great enemy of man- 
kind." He adds, " The deadly horror was, no 
doubt, produced by a variety of causes, arising 
from his peculiar situation and circumstances, 
and which it were presumptuous too minutely 
to scan." To these we may add the opinion of 
that riper scholar and more judicious theologian, 
Arbishop Newcome, who says, " those divines 
entertain the most just and rational notions, 
who do not think that our Lord's broken 
and dejected spirit was a trial supernaturally 
induced, but assign natural causes which shook 
his inmost frame." 

Should it be contended that our Saviour's 
sweating "as it were great drops of blood," 
proves his superhuman suffering, we reply, that 
the language of the Evangelists, will hardly 
justify the opinion commonly entertained, that 
he actually sweat blood, but only that his sweat 
was, as to the size and form of its drops, like 
those of blood ; but were it otherwise, there are 
several cases recorded, in which the blood has 
actually been made to tinge the sweat, through 



180 review of hatfield's 

the intenseness of mental agony. Christ was 
not, could not be unsusceptible of pain. He 
partook of our weak nature, and felt deeply all 
its sufferings. This was necessary that he 
might be a merciful and faithful high priest, and 
able to succor those that are tempted and op- 
pressed. And the remark of Luther is not with- 
out force that " as the body of Christ was pure 
and without sin, but our body is impure, so we 
scarcely feel the terrors of death in two degrees, 
where Christ felt them in ten, since he was the 
greatest of martyrs, and experienced the deep- 
est terrors of death. " But what a noble instance 
of resignation and obedience was that which, 
with a full view and a lively apprehension of 
all his agonies, still exhibited itself in the con- 
duct of our Saviour, and uttered itself forth in 
the words, " Not my will, but thine, O God, be 
done ! " That was filial trust, and the spirit of 
self-sacrifice, which saw in obedience and duty 
something infinitely more noble than is to be 
found in outward ease, or mere personal grati- 
fication. 

Modern orthodoxy has discovered that al- 
though the sufferings of Christ were indeed in- 
finite, this, their magnitude, was by no means 
necessary to the reality or sufficiency of the 
atonement. Mr. Jenkyn concedes that " pro- 
bably, the sufferings of some martyrs may have 
exceeded Christ's, as far as the mere infliction 



UJSiIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 181 

of pain is concerned In reading the ac- 
counts of the sufferings of Christ, we cannot 
avoid the supposition that they might have been 
greater, [notwithstanding they are infinite^ or 
they might have been less without affecting the 
reality or supremacy of the atonement. ,, Nay, 
Mr. Jenkyn goes still farther and maintains that 
" as the infliction of pain is not indispensably 
necessary to the design of punishment, neither 
is it necessary to the design of atonement." — 
Why then are Universalists heretical because 
they do not believe that Christ's sufferings were 
infinite ] Must we believe that he suffered 
infinitely more than was necessary % 

The truth is, we believe precisely what, and 
all that the Scriptures teach of the degree of 
Christ's sufferings. That he came to our world 
poor, in order to make many rich ; that he had 
not where to lay his head ; that he suffered much 
from the hostility and ingratitude of his coun- 
trymen, and much from the dullness, the be- 
trayal, the denial, the desertion of his apostles 
and friends ; that he shrunk from the terrors of 
death and was in agony ; that he was cruelly 
mocked and spit upon and scourged, and finally 
subject to a bitter death, even the death of the 
cross — all this, and all else which the Scriptures 
express or imply of the sufferings of Christ, we 
most fully, most religiously believe. That God 
was angry with his beloved Son and tortured 



182 REVIEW OF HATFIELD'S 

his soul to appease his own wrath, we do not 
believe, and we contemplate such a doctrine 
with utter abhorrence. 

But Mr. Hatfield complains because we regard 
the sufferings of Christ of such a kind as makes 
them in some sense possible to all good men. 
They were in their nature the same as all other 
sufferings by whomsoever endured in the cause 
of righteousness and humanity. Our author 
would have them "peculiar" in this, that they 
not only infinitely transcend but are also wholly 
unlike all other suffering endured in the world. 
Or in other words, if we understand him, he 
would have them to be the sufferings due to us, 
the punishment which our sins merited, inflicted 
on Christ as our substitute ! This would make 
them peculiar indeed. 

That Christ " bore our sins in his body on the 
tree," that " the Lord laid upon him the iniqui- 
ties of us all," &e. &c, is true in the sense in 
which the Scriptures make these declarations. 
But what is that ? We answer, He bore our 
sins, as he did our griefs and sorrows. Not by 
suffering them himself, but by removing them 
through his blessed ministry and death. This is 
the interpretation given us by an evangelist, and 
should be regarded as satisfactory. After re- 
cording many cures performed by our divine 
Master on the sick by whom he was thronged, 
the evangelist adds, that this was done " that it 



UNIVERSALIS*! AS IT IS. 183 

might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the 
prophet saying, Himself took our infirmities , and 
bare our sicknesses" It is thus represented, too, 
by some of the ancient Fathers. Eusebius speaks 
of Christ as " an excellent Physician, who, for 
the sake of saving those who are laboring under 
disease, examines their sufferings, handles their 
foul ulcers, and from others miseries, produces 
grief and pain to himself." 

But our author takes strong exception to an 
illustration which some of our writers have intro- 
duced, in order to set forth their views of Christ's 
death. It has been said that Christ gave himself 
for the redemption of the world, just as our Rev- 
olutionary Fathers gave themselves for the free- 
dom of our country. Whether such illustrations 
are the best that could be employed, we shall not 
here dispute ; but our author should be aware that 
such comparisons have been made by others be- 
sides modern Universalists. How often has the 
case of Zaleucus, king of the Locrians, been ap- 
pealed to, in order to illustrate the orthodox idea 
of atonement ! Zaleucus had passed an edict for- 
bidding adultery, and threatening to put out both 
the eyes of the offender. His own son was the 
first who exposed himself to the penalty. The 
king plucked out one of his son's eyes, and one 
of Ms own. This shows how God could suffer 
the penalty of his own law and let the trans- 
gressor go free ! ! But so ancient and respec- 



184 REVIEW OF HATFIELD'S 

table a writer as Origen, says that " Christ wil- 
lingly suffered this death for the human race, 
analogous to those who die for their country !" 
Even our Savior himself teaches us that " Greater 
love has no man than this, that a man lay down 
his life for his friend." And so says St. Paul: 
" Scarcely for a righteous man would one die, 
yet peradventure for a good man some would 
even dare to die, but God commendeth his love 
toward us, in that while we were yet sinners 
Christ died for us." And as if to show beyond 
all dispute the nature of Christ's death, St. John 
tells us that " Hereby perceive we the love [man- 
ifested by Christ] because he laid down his life 
for us ; and we ought to lay down our lives for 
the brethren." What else can all these passages 
imply than that it is possible for others to die 
for their fellow creatures in such a way as Christ 
died ? And where is the heresy which our au- 
thor has smelt out among Universalists on this 
subject ? 

It is amusing to hear Mr. Hatfield denounc- 

CD 

ing Universalists as " Anti-Christian" for tak- 
ing precisely that view of Christ's sufferings 
which Bp. Butler adopted, and on which he so 
triumphantly defended Christianity against some 
of the most learned and subtle enemies that our 
religion ever had. So far from advocating Mr. 
Hatfield's " peculiarities" of doctrine, this pro- 
found thinker maintained that Christ's sufferings 



UN1VERSALISM AS IT IS. 185 

were altogether analogous to those which men 
are daily called to undergo for one another. — 
" In the daily course of natural providence," 
says he, " it is appointed that innocent people 

should suffer for the faults of the guilty 

Men by their follies, run themselves into extreme 
distress ; into difficulties which would be abso- 
lutely fatal to them, were it not for the interpo- 
sition of others. God commands, by the law of 
nature, that we afford them this assistance, in 
many cases where we can not do it without very 
great pains and labor and sufferings to ourselves. 
And we see in what variety of ways one person's 
sufferings contribute to the relief of another," 
&c. This suffering, so incurred, the Bishop 
calls " vicarious punishment/' and tells us that 
" it is a providential appointment of every day's 
experience." The sufferings of Christ in behalf 
of mankind, he represents as an appointment of 
Christianity, "of the very same hind' with what 
the world affords us daily examples of." Where 
then was the peculiarity ? But probably Bishop 
Butler was an infidel, and his opinions Anti- 
Christian ! 

Mr. Hatfield says we " teach that there was 
nothing peculiar in the sufferings of Christ." — 
The accusation is false. We believe that the 
sufferings of Christ were peculiarly great, 
though not infinite, probably not superhuman : 
he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with 

16 



186 keview or Hatfield's 

grief. His was a life of suffering, and bis death 
was attended by every circumstance wbicb could 
affect a mind free from sin. But we say with 
Jenkyn, " In tbe sufferings of Christ, there was 
no pang of remorse, no consciousness of demer- 
it, no moral and eternal death," p. 40. Again, 
we believe the sufferings of Christ were pe- 
culiar in their object. They had a higher aim 
than any other sufferings ever endured. The 
cause in which, and for which, Christ died, was 
no less than man's highest and endless welfare. 
It was to reconcile a world of intelligences to 
God, and to make them the participants of a 
grace that was infinite and divine. These suf- 
ferings were peculiar, too, in this, that while 
others had died for their "friends," and might 
sometimes even dare to die for the " good," our 
Savior died for his enemies. It is the highest 
pitch of human greatness and heroism to die 
even for personal friends or the most loved and 
valued among men. " To die for the unworthy 
is above humanity. It was divine in Christ 
while we were enemies to reconcile us to God 
by his own death." But once more : we be- 
lieve the sufferings of Christ to be peculiar in 
their efficacy. Men often suffer and die in vain, 
and their lives are thrown away. Christ knew 
what he would, and what he could do, and he 
therefore " gave himself a ransom for all — " 
he " tasted death for every man." Aud he him- 



UNiVERSALISM AS IT IS. 187 

self says, "And I, if I be lifted up from the 
earth will draw all men unto me." Christ's suf- 
ferings are possessed of all the efficacy neces- 
sary for the accomplishment of the grand object 
he had in view ; because they are exactly 
adapted to the case in which they were under- 
gone, and because they are precisely what God 
saw to be proper and needful. Hence we are 
taught by inspiration that Christ " shall see of 
the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied. " 
All that he died to accomplish shall be accom- 
plished ; all whom he died to save shall be 
saved. This is a "peculiarity ' in Christ's suf- 
ferings which has been strangely and sadly 
overlooked. Our author himself, notwithstand- 
ing all the peculiarities for which he contends, 
has no knowledge of this, nay denies, scorns, 
tramples it under foot. He would have Christ's 
sufferings peculiar in their nature, and infinite 
in their extent, the sufferings of a God rendered 
substitutional ly for the whole world ; and yet 
what is to be the result ? According to ortho- 
doxy, it will be meagre enough. These infinite 
sufferings have no certain efficacv, there is no 
proportion between the means and the end. 
The former is grand beyond all conception — all 
necessity; the latter is contemptible. It is like 
rearing an Atlas to sustain a cockle-shell. It is 
one of the marvels of our age, with what toil 
some men strive to prove the Supreme Deity 



188 REVIEW OF HATFIELD'S 

of Jesus Christ, and the infinite merit of his 
sufferings and death, for the mere purpose, one 
is sometimes tempted to think, of showing how 
fruitless the labors and agonies of such an 
august Personage may be ! 

There is a curious paragraph from our author 
which we can not avoid here transferring. Af- 
ter making various quotations from Universal- 
ist authors in relation to the sufferings and 
death of Christ, Mr. H. says, " I forbear to ad- 
duce other witnesses. What we have is enough 
to break our hearts. That men, professing In- 
fidelity should have thus made the cross of none 
effect would not have surprised us. But that 
men professing, and very tenacious of the 
claim, to be christians, should have thus wound- 
ed Christ in the house of his friends, is heart- 
rending. We are confounded, overwhelmed, 
at such an unnatural spectacle. Our only reply 
is — a flood of tears" 

11 A flood of tears !" Oh, what a generous 
sympathetic soul our author has ! What a ten- 
der and compasionate heart ! Let any man 
read but three pages of " Universalism as it is," 
and tell us if its author's spirit is not gentler 
than the cooing dove. Kind, mild, loving, 
weeping saint. Our own hard heart is melted 
under his tears — his " flood of tears." May 
their fountain never be dry ! May he always 
have tears in equal quantities when the errors 



UNIVERSALIS!*! AS IT IS. 189 

of Unlversalism fall under his observation ! It 
will save us oceans of abuse. 

O.ir readers can now easily see the falsehood 
of the charge preferred against us by Mr. Hat- 
field. His design was not to exhibit our views, 
not to give Universal ism as it is in relation to 
this point, but merely to catch up some passages 
which could he turned to advantage against us, 
by chiming in »vith the prejudices of his ignor- 
ant readers. The object and the manner of its 
execution is worthy of our author. 

Our author closes his chapter by a labored 
attempt to convict Uni versa lists of a most pal- 
pable inconsistency in their views, in which he 
represents them as maintaining the gross self- 
contradiction, that Christ saves no one only in 
this world; and yet that he is the Savior of all 
men, through eternity. 

To seek out the occasion for this consummate 
blunder, or something worse than a blunder, it 
is only necessary to remember that according 
to a popular form of orthodoxy, this life is only 
a probationary state and not a season of pun- 
ishment also. The penalty of sin being nothing 
less than endless misery or u eternal death," 
belongs exclusively to the future state. Now 
Christ came to save men from the punish- 
me it of their sins ; and of course, to save 
them from little or nothing that pertains to this 
world. 

1$* 



190 REVIEW OF HATFIELD S 

The Universalist view is widely different 
from this. It maintains that Christ came, ac- 
cording to the Scriptures, to "save his people 
from their sins ;" not the punishment of them ; 
to call sinners to repentance, etc. etc. It was 
a present and pressing evil from which he 
would redeem them ; it was something belong- 
ing to this world, something attaching to man 
here. The difference in the two theories is 
manifest. According to one Christ saves men 
from justice, from punishment merited. Ac- 
cording to the other he saves them from sinning 
and thus falling under the inflictions of justice. 
According to one he saves men from hell exist- 
ing only in a future state ; according to the 
other, from sin which exists and reigns in 
this. 

It was with reference to this distinction that 
Mr. Ballou probably somewhere said, (our au- 
thor's reference is incorrect,) that M all those 
passages of Scripture which define the nature 
of salvation, agree that Christ saves man from 
evil which attaches to him in the present state 
of being It thus appears that the salva- 
tion of mankind by Jesus Christ is a salvation 
from sin. And as sin is an evil which attaches 
to us in this present state, it appears that in- 
stead of saving men from just punishment in 
the future world, Jesus came to save them from 
the sin which they commit in this." In like 



UNIVERSALIS]*! AS IT 18. 191 

manner Mr. Whittemore says, " The evils from 
which Jesus came to save men are in this 
world, and for this reason he came into this 
world to save them." 

Who on earth but our author could infer 
from such language as this, uttered as it obvi- 
ously was in direct reference to prevailing or- 
thodox opinions, that Universalists teach " that 
the sufferings and death of Christ, aifect man 
only in this present world" and that his " salva- 
tion has nothing to do with another world ! ! !" 
And yet such is the conclusion of our candid 
and truth-loving author. Unsatisfied with charg- 
ing such consequences on Mr. Ballou and Mr. 
"Whittemore, whose language alone he has 
quoted, he says, " Such is the uniform testimo- 
ny of all their authors so far as I have had an 
opportunity to consult them. They all main- 
tain that the only sense in which it is proper to 
say that Jesus is the Savior of the world is that 
just given ! !" 

Having established this great point thus sat- 
isfactorily, our author thinks himself justified in 
wielding his tremendous logical powers, and 
goes on to say, that granting the Universalist 
doctrine, " then I maintain that Christ died in 
vain as respects the vast multitudes of the hu- 
man race." Indeed ; can not Mr. Hatfield 
maintain this appalling conclusion on any other 
hypothesis than that which he falsely ascribes 



192 REVIEW OF HATFIELD'S 

to Universalists ? If we mistake not he may 
maintain, upon the true grounds of his own 
faith, that " as far as respects the vast multi- 
tudes of the human race Christ died in vain." 
We know of no form of orthodoxy so called, 
but that almost obsolete one of vicarious limited 
atonement, which does not thus end. But this 
is not all. Our author wishes to exhibit the 
strength of his mental vision still farther, and 
therefore proceeds with singular coolness to 
show how on the theory ascribed toUniveisalists 
"they absolutely exclude themselves from using 
a large class of texts in proof of their principal 
doctrine to which they have been accustomed 
most confidently to appeal." " What else, 
now," says he, " can it be but the most bare- 
faced deception in a Universalist preacher, 
who believes that our future condition is not at 
all affected by what Christ did or suffered here, 
to appeal, in endeavoring to disprove endless, 
or limited punishment in a future state, to those 
texts which represent Christ as the Savior of 
all men, &c." 

It is passing strange that a man endowed 
with even a moderate share of common sense 
should make so hopeless an attempt to impose 
on the credulity of the world as is here exhibit- 
ed. Whom could our author expect to persuade 
into the belief that Universalists are so stupid, 
$o utterly blind, as to maintain in one breath 



UNIVERSALIS*! AS IT IS. 193 

11 that salvation has nothing to do with the 
future state/' and in the next that " all men 
will be taken to dwell in heaven freed from all 
sin and sorrow, because Christ died for all, or 
was the Savior of the world ¥* And yet this 
is the task of our author. And to show how 
keen is his perception of our absurdities, he 
must needs introduce several examples in 
in which our writers assert, or attempt to prove, 
the salvation of all men ; and from which, with 
the authority of a master of logic, he brings 
them back to this grand doctrine, before stated, 
that " the salvation which Christ effects has noth- 
ing to do only with this life" Take one instance ; 
for it is instructive to see what flights folly can 
sometimes exhibit. Mr, D. Skinner is repre- 
sented as saying, " I can not see how any two 
propositions can be more clearly establish- 
ed than these — I. That Christ died for all; 
and — 2. That he will save all that he died for." 
To this our sapient author replies, " Well, what 
then? Does it follow that all will go to heaven 1 
No, for nothing that Christ did in this world, as 
thev maintain, affects our condition hereafter in 
the least degree." Another of our writers had 
observed that to grant that sufficient provision 
had been made for the salvation of all men is 
equivalent to the admission that all will be saved. 
" But where ?" says the lynx-eyed Mr. Hatfield, 
" Not in a future state but in this. Not from 



194 review or hattield's 

punishment, but from sin. Are then all saved 
from sin in this life ? No. Then all will not 
be — are not certainly saved even in this world : 
and this salvation does not concern another 
world !" But enough. It is plain that Univer- 
salists are unspeakably short-sighted, or our 
author has most egregiously misrepresented 
them. 

But not quite satisfied with exhibiting our 
" fallacies'* and folly, Mr. Hatfield accuses us of 
" sophistry, n and of continually shifting our 
ground and occupying by turns the most con- 
tradictory positions merely to impose upon our 
fellow men. " Such sophistry" he says " is 
scattered over nearly all Mr. Bdlou's pages.'' 
M Mr. Thomas' book is wholly based on this 
fallacy. From beginning to end he refers to 
such texts in proof of the salvation of all man- 
kind in another state. And I scarcely know 
one of their books in which this sophistry does 
not appear." " It shows" says he, " that they 
do not believe their own definitions and doc- 
trines when they are thus driven to swallow 
their own words. A long schooling it needs, 
indeed, for men to unlearn the plainest lessons 
of common sense !" There is civility and gen- 
tleness, and good nature in these remarks 
which become their author and may be regard- 
ed as the fruits of his religion. But he shows 
bis zeal in such warm and energetic language 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 195 

as the following : " Away with such dishonesty, 
such pitiful subterfuges, sucli tricks and double 
dealings !! i*' Pure soul, has he not another 
M flood of tears V But these are the expres- 
sions of 4< orthodox" charity ; and proceed from 
a heart, if we may believe their author, which 
has been " radically changed" and which finds 
its highest gratification in secret prayer — to be 
boasted of afterwards, and proclaimed from the 
house tops ! 

Our author's next labor is to exhibit our denial 
of the Trinity. The Universalists, says he, 
maintain that "Jesus Christ was only a man 
of superior gifts ; and consequently that 

THERE IS NO DISTINCTION OF PERSONS IN 1HE 
DEITY." 

It need not be here said, we trust, what vast 
importance has, for ages, been attached to the 
doctrine of the Trinity, how many and bitter 
controversies it has excited, how little agree- 
ment there has been and now is, among its ad- 
vocates, and how profoundly useless it has ever 
proved to all the practical interests of religion. 
We do not propose therefore to do more than 
merely to correct some of our author's state- 
ments, and justify and defend our faith on the 
subject, against his assaults. 

All christians, we suppose, agree in believing 
that there is one, and, properly speaking, but 
one God. With equal harraomy they all believe 



196 review of hatfield's 

in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the 
Savior of men ; and also in one Holy Spirit, 
the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth. These are 
the facts presented in the Scriptures, and in 
which christians of all ages have been agreed, 
But when men begin to speculate and theorise 
on these facts, unity of faith soon ceases. It 
was so among the early christians and has been 
so ever since. " Respecting the consummate 
perfection and majesty of the Father," says 
Dr. Muenscher, " there was no disagreement 
among them ; but the more they labored to de- 
fine the nature of the Son and Holy Ghost, and 
the mode of their relation to the Father, the 
more they disagreed." The truth is, as the 
author of " Religious Dissensions" judiciously 
remarks, the controversies relating to this sub- 
ject, " have not so much regarded what the 
Bible speaks, as the use to be made of its testi- 
mony." 

The theory now called Trinitarian, it is 
worthy of observation, is no product of the 
early ages of Christianity. It had no existence 
for several centuries, but was the crabbed 
growth of later times. It also deserves con- 
sideration that no Trinitarian has yet been able 
to state that doctrine in even intelligible terms. 
The Nicene creed is scarcely Trinitarian. The 
Athanasian, so called, is so ; and yet it may be 
well doubted if more glaring absurdities were 



T7NIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 197 

ever brought together in the same space. The 
Westminster Assembly, and Presbyterian creed- 
makers tell us, that " in the unity of the God- 
head there be three persons of one substance, 
power and eternity ; God the Father, God the 
Son, and God the Holy Ghost. The Father is 
of none, neither begotten, nor proceeding ; the 
Son is eternally begotten of the Father; the 
Holy Ghost eternally proceeding from the Fa- 
ther and the Son." What ideas these gentle- 
men may have had, it is impossible to say, but 
what language, we ask, could they have well 
contrived to use, that would more effectually 
defy all attempts at comprehension 1 We can 
not avoid the conviction, that modesty at least, if 
not justice, demandsof our Trinitarian brethren, 
that they should not rashly damn us for disbe- 
lieving a dogma which can never be tausrht in 
the language of Scripture, and which after the 
attempts of ages they themselves have not yet 
been able intelligibly to express i 

Our author is right in saying that most Uni- 
versalists in this country at the present day, 
maintain that "there is no distinction of per- 
sons in the deity." We find no notice of 
such distinction in the Holy Sciiptures: we 
meet with neither the phraseology nor the idea 
there. They speak of the one God as one per- 
son, i. e. as a Being numerically distinct from 
all other beings ; and to our poor comprehen- 

17 



198 REVIEW OF HATFIELD'S 

sion, they no more intimate the existence of 
three persons in the Godhead than they do of 
thirty or any other number. 

But our disbelief of the popular dogma of 
three persons in the Deity, is by no means 
necessarily connected with the other doctrine 
ascribed to the denomination, viz. that " Jesus 
Christ was only a man of superior gifts." It is 
true, that some of our writers have adopted these 
notions of our Savior, but our author's repre- 
sentation that they are found running through 
all our writing's is not true ; so wide indeed is 
it from the fact, that as far as our acquaintance 
extends, they are held by only a very small mi- 
nority of the denomination ; while the great 
mass entertain very exalted conceptions of 
Christ and his ministry. Still we have never 
made this a point of debate and strife among 
us, and the history of the past should admonish 
us that little is to be gained to piety or peace 
by so doing. We believe with Bp. Warburton 
that it is of more concern for us to know Christ's 
Moral than his Physical nature. His names in- 
dicate his office rather than the dignity of his 
person. It was never required, we think, in 
apostolic times, that in order to be a christian 
one must believe that Jesus Christ was the Su- 
preme God, or the second person in the Deity, 
Such a condition was never prescribed by any 
inspired man, Philip, in order to christian 



UNIVERRALISM AS IT IS. 199 

baptism, asked no more than this ; " if thou be- 
lievest with all thine heart, thou mayest." The 
reply was, " I believe that Jksus Christ is the 
Son op God." Had Athanasius or a modern 
Trinitarian been there in the place of Philip, 
would this have satisfied him? St. John in like 
manner lays great stress upon this confession, 
which Philip required. " Whosoever," says 
he, "shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, 
God dwelleth in him, and he in God." Aoain, 
" Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, 
is born of God." M Who is he that overcometh 
the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is 
the Son of God P 

There is another consideration which seems 
to us to weigh heavily against the popular dog- 
ma of the Supreme Deity of Jesus Christ, and 
to deserve more attention than it has hitherto 
received. It is the fact, that notwithstanding 
the Jews of the apostolic age were bigoted ly 
attached to the doctrine of the simple unity of 
God, the doctrine of the Trinity was never 
made, so far as the New Testament informs us, 
a ground of complaint by them, or the occasion 
of persecution against the inspired preachers 
of the gospel. The apostles uniformly entered 
the Jewish synagogues at first, and preached 
Jesus, and that Jesus was the Christ ; but in no 
single instance do we hear of any opposition on 
the ground that they preached him to be the 



200 REVIEW OP HATFIELD'S 

Supreme God, or the second person in the God- 
head. That the Jews of that or any preceding 
or any subsequent age have been Trinitarian*, 
cannot be pretended. And the captious accu- 
sations which they, in two or three instances, 
preferred against our Lord himself during his 
personal ministry show clearly how sensitive 
they were on this subject, and how ready to avail 
themselves of the popular faith in order to ef- 
fect his ruin. When he pronounced a man's 
sins forgiven, they accused him of blasphemy, 
because he did that which they believed or pre- 
tended could be done by God only. When he 
spoke of God as his Father, they again accus- 
ed him of blasphemy, because as they repre- 
sented it, he thus made himself equal with, or 
rather like to God. So also when he said, " I 
and my Father are one," they preferred the 
same accusation once more, because being a 
man he made himself God. These instances 
are enough to show how ready, and even anx- 
ious they were to find occasion to accuse him. 
But when thus accused, did our Saviour ack- 
nowledge the charge to be just ? Did he pro- 
fess that he was indeed God or equal with him ? 
No Trinitarian will venture to assert or pretend 
it. So far from this, our Lord took pains to re- 
ply to these accusations, which sprung more 
from captiousness than an honest misapprehen- 
sion, and showed that they were groundless and 



UNIVERSALIS*! AS IT IS. 201 

absurd. After the ascension, we hear no more 
of these complaints, and we must, therefore con- 
clude that the apostles were not understood to 
preach that Christ was God, or else that the 
Jews were strangely and unaccountably indif- 
ferent to the subject. The latter cannot be ad- 
mitted with the slightest show of truth, and we 
are, therefore, left to adopt the former. We 
have quite circumstantial accounts of the apos- 
tles' labors for thirty or forty years after the 
crucifixion, and although they were brought 
into almost constant contact with their country- 
men, the Jews, and for several years preached 
exclusively among them, speaking face to face, 
and in their own language, the New Testament 
contains no hint that they were ever persecuted 
or opposed in any manner, for preaching that 
Christ was the Supreme God ! Could a Trin- 
itarian have preached his doctrines boldly for 
years, in Judea in that age, and yet no hand 
have been raised against him, no mouth opened 
to condemn him ? Let him answer in the af- 
firmative who can. 

As a denomination we believe, in the very 
words of Scripture, that there is " one Lord, 
one faith, one baptism, onr God and Father 
of all, who is above all." * c To us there is 
but one God, THE FATHER, from whom are 
all things, and we in him, and one Lord, Jesus 
Christ, by whom are all things and we by bim." 

U* 



202 review of Hatfield's 

Highly exalted as we conceive Jesus Christ 
to he, we still believe him to be subordinate to 
the Father, and distinct from him. He never 
claimed to be the Supreme God, but always 
acknowledged his inferiority, and his depend- 
ence upon him. When tempted by the devil 
he conquered by avowing his obligations to wor- 
ship 4 * the Lord his God." He spoke of God 
habitually as his Father, confessed that he came 
not of himself, nor to do his own will, and 
maintained that the words which he spoke and 
the works which he performed, were the words 
and works of his Father who sent him. In ac- 
cordance with this idea, he represented every 
thing he possessed as the gift of his Father. — 
" As the Father hath life in himself, so hath he 
given to the Son to have life in himself."' *' All 
power is given to me in heaven and earth. " He 
acknowledged that God was greater than he, 
and showed how that acknowledgment should 
be understood, by frequently jiraymg to his Fa- 
ther, and especially in his last moments on the 
cross, when he exclaimed in the bitterness of 
death, " My God, my God, why hast thou for- 
saken me ?" After which he said, u Father, 
into thy hands I commend my spirit." Jf Je- 
sus Christ was in a few passages called God, it 
is evident that he recognized a being still great- 
er and higher than himself, whom he called his 
God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus 



IJNIVERSALISM AS IT 19. 203 

Christ. " Thou hast loved righteousness and 
hated iniquity, therefore God, even thy God, 
bath anointed thee with the oil of gladness 
above thy fellows." 

We believe that Jesus Christ is " the Son of 
God ,? — " the first born of the whole creation " 
— " the image of the invisible God " — " the 
brightness of his glory, and the express image 
of his person." Although he appeared in the 
form of weak humanity, yet he was " made so 
much better than the angels as he hath by in- 
heritance obtained a more excellent name than 
they," and is " appointed heir of all things." 
He was Immanuel, God with us, for God was 
in him reconciling the world to himself,'* nay, in 
" him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead 
bodily," so that he who hath seen Jesus hath 
also seen the Father, he who hath heard Jesus 
hath also heard the Father, speaking by his 
Son ; he who loveth the Son, loveth the Father 
also who sent him, and " whosoever denieth the 
Son, the same hath not the Father." In short, 
we believe in Christ as the Son of God and the 
Saviour of the world. We believe that he is 
appointed of God, the king of his heavenly king- 
dom, and that he must reign — there is a neces- 
sity laid upon him to reign — till he hath put all 
enemies under his feet ; till all things, God alone 
excepted, shall be subdued unto him. " Then 
shall the Son also himself he subject unto him 



204 REVIEW OF HATFIELD'S 

that (lid put all things under him, that God may 
be all in all." For " He hath highly exalted 
him and given him a name that is above every 
name, that in the name of Jesus every knee 
should bow, of things in heaven and things in 
the earth, and things under the earth — * a com- 
mon periphrasis of the Hebrew and New Tes- 
tament writers,' says Prof. Stuart, * for the uni- 
verse ' — and that everv tongue should confess 
that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God 
the Father." 

Such are our views of God and of Christ. — 
They were expressed by our Saviour himself 
when he said, " This is life eternal, that they 
might know thf.f., thk only truk God, and Je- 
sus Christ, whom thou hast sent ;" and by St. 
Paul who says, that *\ there is one God, and one 
Mediator between God and men, the man Christ 
Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all." — 
That this statement will satisfy such men as our 
author, we do not expect, because we choose 
to express our faith, " not in the words whi< h 
man's wisdom teachelh, but in the words which 
the Holy Ghost teacheth," and Trinitarianism 
can never be so expressed. 

We are sorry to add that our author's "flood 
of tears" like the morning dew, is passed and 
gone, and instead of weeping over our errors, 
he gratifies his pious feelings by quoting a pas- 
sage from that very devout and spiritual writer, 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 205 

Burns, the Scottish bard ! Whether it meets 
with a befitting application to Universalists, or 
whether, as it was originally designed, it should 
not rather be applied to a very different class 
of men with whom our author is on terms of far 
greater intimacy and fellowship, we shall leave 
the public to judge. We will quote the pas* 
sage : 

" God knows T'm not the thing: T should be, 
Nor am I even the thin? I could be, 
But twenty times I rather would be 

An AtheUt clean, 
Than under gospel colors hid he 

Just for a screen.'* 

Having; thus cleared his conscience our author 
next proceeds to show that according to Uni- 
versalism " The favou of God can neither be 

GAINED NOR LOST." 

" Tt matters not" says our author, giving a 
statement of our views, " It matters not how a 
man conducts himself whether ill or well, the 
great God regards him with the same com- 
placency and pleasure. God's mind is not in 

the least degree affected bv our sins ; he always 

, e 
loves us, and all of us, with his whole heart and 

soul, and none the less because of any sins that 

we may have committed in this frail state. " He 

then enlarges upon the subject and shows that 

no good Universalist can suppose that God is 

ever displeased with the work of his own 

hands ; no, not even with Pharaoh nor with Koran 



206 REVIEW OF HATFIELD'S 

and his crew, nor with the children of Israel, 
even when they killed the Lord of life ! nor 
that the punishments inflicted upon these trans- 
gressors were any thing but love, the means of 
still greater good, &c. &c. " It is out of the 
question, say they, that God can ever become 
unreconciled to man, whether he be a Herod, 
a Nero, or a Caesar Borgia." 

All 1 his is proved after Mr. Hatfield's fashion 
from Universalist authors. From Mr. Ballou 
he proves that in the case of Adam's first sin, 
although a great change had taken place with 
Adam, it would still be difficult to prove that 
any alteration had happened in God; that God 
was not unreconciled to Adam, and that to say 
that God loved him any less after transgression 
than before denies his unchangeability. Nay 
Mr. Ballou grows very blasphemous, it would 
seem, and actually maintains that there is no 
reason to justify the belief that Adam was not 
equally the object of divine favor after he sin- 
ned as he was before ; that no change in man 
can effect any change in Cod, and finally that 
all are equally the onjects of the divine love ! ! ! ! 

" This view," says our author, " upturns or- 
thodoxy at once, and convicts, if true, even 
prophets and apostles of heresy." That it up- 
turns orthodoxy is very frankly conceded, but 
we flatter ourselves that the prophets and apos- 
tles are not to be found in company with a 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS* 207 

system that a single truth so readily upturns. 
But let us examine this subject with more 
care. Our author begins by uttering a rank 
falsehood. He says that according to Univer- 
salism "it matters not how a man conducts 
himself, whether ill or well, the great God re- 
gards him with the same complacency and 
pleasure." Now this is not true. It is what 
no Universalist has ever expressed or believed. 
What is the meaning of the phrase, " regards 
with the same complacency and plcasureV* Our 
author can not be ignorant that love is by the- 
ologians divided into two or three kinds, as love 
of esteem , love of benevolence, love of complacency. 
And he also well knows that they distinguish 
the love of God toward men into love of benevo- 
lence, which is the inclination to seek the happi- 
ness or welfare of its object, and love of com- 
placency, which finds pleasure or satisfaction in 
the contemplation of that object's moral char- 
acter. It is obvious, therefore, that while as a 
benevolent being, God must love all his crea- 
tures, he can love with " complacency and 
pleasure" only those who are good and made 
morally conformable to his own will.* This is 
what Universalists have always believed and 



* We would advise our author to read a few pnges of 
President Edward's Treatise on the Nature of True Virtue. 
Vol. III. pp. 95 — 97, where he will find this grand distinc 
tion very clearly and even beautifully presented. 



208 review or hatfield's 

preached, and what the Scriptures most fully 
sustain. 

Now our author not only failed to make this 
obvious distinction but concealed it, or what is 
worse, he charged upon Universalists an opin- 
ion which is notoriously false and which he 
knew he had no means to prove : viz. that God 
looks upon those guilty of the blackest crimes 
" with the same complacency and pleasure" as 
he does upon those who have washed their 
hands in innocency ; or in other words, that 
God takes no cognizance of moral character or 
conduct, is utterly indifferent whether men are 
good or evil, and that it is a part of our faith 
that M every one that doeth evil is good in the 
sight of the Lord and he delighteth in them," 
and that he discerneth not " between the right- 
eous and the wicked and between him that 
serveth God and him that serveth him not." 

Among all our author's multiplied and mel- 
ancholly departures from truth, we have met 
no one more glaring, more wicked than this. 
Charity itself can not set up the plea that he 
might have been mistaken. He knew that the 
representation which he was making was false 
length and breadth ; and we leave him to set- 
tle it with his conscience. 

That God loves all men and loves them 
always, is a great and constant doctrine of Uni- 
versalism, and also of the Bible. And on this 



TJNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 209 

subject, there exists little difference of opinion 
among enlightened and candid theologians of 
all sects and parties. That " God is love 1 — 
that he "is good unto all and his tender mer- 
cies are over all his works," are truths of Scrip- 
ture which few are bold enough to deny and 
none can explain away. That God is unchange- 
able is also a truth too clearly taught to be 
thrown in question by any believer in revela- 
tion. What is the necessary result of these 
doctrines ? What but that so strongly and fre- 
quently taught in the New Testament, that God 
loved the world, and so loved it as to give his 
Son to die for it : that he loved mankind when 
they were enemies, sinners, dead in trespasses 
and sins, and that the whole economy of the 
gospel is hut the ft nit of that pure, benevolent 
all-embracing and everlasting love ] We do 
not say that God regarded sinners M with com- 
placency and pleasure," but we do say what 
the Scriptures so plainly affirm, that he loved 
them as a father loves a disobedient and way- 
ward child, and that he " commendeth his love 
toward us, in that while we were yet sin- 
ners Christ died for us !" St. John bears testi- 
mony to the same great truth ; *' Herein is love, 
not that we loved God, but that he loved us, 
and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our 
sins. . . . We love God because he first loved us." 
In denouncing Uaiveisalists, therefore, for bold- 

18 



210 review of hatfield's 

ing such a fearful sentiment, our author un* 
wittingly involved all those men of God who 
spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. 
It may please Mr. Hatfield perhaps to see 
the opinions of some who have been distin- 
guished in their day, on this subject. Clement 
of Alexandria remarks that "God can hate 
nothing which he has made. For if he hated it 
he wou'.d not have made it, since every tiling 
rests upon his will ; consequently God loves all 
things that exist." But Clement was a Univer- 
salist and his opinion is therefore of no value 
with our author. But hear Dr. Dwight, who 
was not a Universalist. He argues that God has 
no motive to be malevolent. ** All beings and 
events," he says, " are exactly such as he 
chooses either to produce, or to permit; and 
such as he chose antecedently to their existence. 
He can have, therefore, nothing to fear or 
malign. " Vol. i, Ser. 8. Again lie argues that 
the benevolence of God is strictly infinite. " To 
his love of happiness existing, to his desire of 
happiness as a thing to be produced, no limit 
can be affixed. ... It is equally evident that the 
benevolence of God is immutable and eternal. 
This divine attribute, is like omniscience and 
omnipotence, plainly incapable of addition or 
diminution. How can it be increased ? By 
whom or what can it be lessened 1 What can 
put an end to its existence V 1 He maintains 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 211 

that God's whole " moral character is love, 
endlessly diversified in its operations and man- 
ifestations but simple and divisible in its na- 
ture ; an intense and eternal flame of uneom- 
pounded good will. . . Nothing less than infinite 
and unmingled benevolence could qualify him fur 
the great work of replenishing his vast kingdom 
with unceasing and eternal good. Ail good- 
will inferior to this, must, it would seem, be 
wearied, discouraged, influenced to change its 
views by rebellion and provocation, and thus in- 
clined to vary its origi?tal and best designs and to 
fall short of the perfect objects, tvhich it began to 
accomplish. But the love of God, evidently 
without limits, is equally without variableness or 
the shadow of turning" Truly this is as bad as 
" Messrs. Ballon and Skinner." But bad as it 
is the good Doctor makes it still worse by con- 
trasting Jehovah with the heathen gods whom 
he represented much as Mr. Hat&Vld does the 
object of his worship: he says they were "de- 
formed by every human passion, possessed of no 
fixed character, or purpose ; contentious among 
themselves ; revengeful toward mankind ; flatter- 
ed into good humor again by their services /" 

But take another author, Thomas Amory, 
whose " Twenty-two Sermon's" on the Good- 
ness < f God lie before me. "The goodness of 
God is unchangeable. 'Tis not a flush of good 
humor which may be spent, 'tis not a great, but 



212 REVIEW OF HATFIELD*S 

limited treasury which may be exhausted by 
large and continued communications ; km is it 
a disposition which can be wearied and altered by 
the follies and vices of men, or of any Oliver crea- 
tures. . . . God is absolutely exempt from those 
passions, which when irritated, often change 
good men from kind to cruel. Though mankind 
offer to their Maker innumerable provocations, 
yet he can never be provoked to do any thing 
unworthy perfect wisdom and goodness." 

This is the manner in which orthodox men 
speak when they have no party purpose to gain 
and no unscriptural doctrine to support. True, 
this is not the manner of John Calvin and his 
followers. According to him, God loves only 
the elect. The rest, and much the larger part 
of the human race, were created objects of his 
eternal hatred and curse. " It is an awful de- 
cree, I confess," says Calvin, " but no one can 
deny that God foreknew the future final fate of 
man before he created him, and that he fore- 
knew it because it was appointed hy his own de- 
cree." But towards the elect the divine love is 
as unfailing, according to Calvin and Presbyte- 
rianism, as any Universalist could desire. But 
our author has made the discovery that God 
renders vengeance to his enemies, who shall be 
punished with everlasting destruction ! Nay, 
he has succeeded in finding two or three pas- 
sages in which God is said to have been the 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 213 

enemy of certain of his creatures, and to have 
fought against them ! ! — and on these lie rears 
the pleasing doctrine that God can be as angry, 
revengeful and injurious as any of his sinful 
creatures. But there is one discovery which he 
has not yet made, and which might be of vast 
service to his theologv. We allude to the fact 
that God can love a shiner, without loving or 
approving of sin. Christ was once called the 
" friend of sinners ;" but we believe he was 
never justly thought a friend of sin. This slight 
distinction has been entirely overlooked by our 
author, who has grossly misrepresented our 
views by pretending that we believe that " God 
loves sin just as much as holiness/' Why can 
not Mr. Hatfield be candid and speak the truth? 
From this doctrine of God's immutable love 
to man, the Universalists infer, says our author, 
that Prayer has no effect on God ; that is, it will 
effect no alteration in his dispositions, or pur- 
poses, or will. Prayer under such circumstan- 
ces our author thinks would be mockery ! It is 
the reason too why Universalists have no more 
prayers. And hereupon Mr. H. breaks forth 
into a strain of almost unparalleled abuse, un- 
paralleled even by himself. " Now all this," 
snys he, " must be ' glad tidings,' indeed, of 
4 great joy' to every blood-thirsty, polluted and 
abandoned wretch on earth. And no wonder 

is it that such men are such warm adherents to 

16* 



214 review of hatfield's 

our modern Universalism Universalis! 

preachers, though they often endeavor to evade 
the force of the fact, are not ignorant that their 
doctrines find most favor with such men. . . . 
Yes if any one wishes to find the genuine 
patrons of Universalism, let him go among the 
lawless, intemperate and profane. It is such 
who first congregate, as we all know, in every 
village and town in the land, around the first 
preachers of this ' impartial 1 doctrine, and form 
the nucleus of almost every Universalist Society 
in the whole country. And what is equally 
manifest, they love the doctrine most when most 
wedded to their sins. 

' ncslpctins: a' that's guid, 

TIipv ri«»t in excess ! 
Bnifh careless and fearless 

Of either heaven or hell, 
Esteeming '"id deeming 

It a' an idle tale.' " 

It will be seen from the foregoing, ihat our 
author ca'» sometimes strike as well as smile and 
weep. His u flood of tears," of which he spoke 
a few pages back, seems to have been only a 
freshet, which, like most things of the kind, has 
done him far more harm than good. It has 
swept every sentiment of charity, and all regard 
for truth from his heart. The language here 
quoted from him, can be considered in no other 
ligbt than as a most graceless and at the same 
time a most malicious slander, which, fortunate- 



UXIVERSALI3M AS IT IS. 215 

ly for Universal ism, is so glaringly, notoriously 
false, that it falls poweiless from the tongue of 
the slanderer, and can injure no one but him 
who was reckless enough to nt r er it. Still we 
would suggest to Edwin F. Hatfield that this 
kind of amusement, of which he appears to he 
so exceedingly fond, is not entirely innocent nor 
without danger. It is a vicious habit to say the 
best of it, and has already ruined many better 
men Uian he. 

The folly of representing " the blood-thirsty, 
polluted and abandoned,' 1 "the lawless, intem- 
perate and profane," as the genuine patrons of 
Universal ism ^ is really unparalleled. If this be 
as our author represents ir, will he account for 
the fact that there are so few Universalist and so 
many orthodox congregations in such a city as 
this. Do our four churches, which he himself, 
in another place, describes as most meagre af- 
fairs, contain all the graceless wretches of New 
York? But, then, Mr. Hatfield is not ignorant 
of the fact, known to the whole vicinity, that for 
intelligence, uprightness, and moral worth, the 
Orchard street Universal st congregation will not 
suffer in a comparison with that of the Seventh 
Presbylerian Church ! He knows this, and dare 
not deny it ; he knew it too when the foul slan- 
der above was penned. But we will not speak 
in behalf of the Orchard street Church alone, but 
ia behalf of all our churches in the city and of 



216 REVIEW OF HATFIELD S 

the denomination throughout the country, and 
we tell Mr. Hatfield that it will not suffer in a 
comparison with the same number of the Pres- 
byterian Church in the United States. We ask 
him to consult the annals of crime, to visit our 
penitentiaries and State Prisons, and to make a 
faithful report how large a portion of their in- 
mates even profess to be Universalists. We will 
risk our reputation for veracity if he finds one in 
a hundred ; and yet we constitute at least one 
twentieth of our whole population ! But let this 
pass. We will only say to Mr. Hatfield as the 
archangel said to the devil, " The Lord re'jike 
thee.' , 

But we must return for a moment to the 
charge preferred against us of making prayer a 
mockery, and of heresy in believing that prayer 
is not designed to "effect any sort of change in 

the Supreme Being, in his disposition, in his 
will or in his purposes." " What wretched 
work, 5 ' says our author, " does this make of all 
those promises which are based on the condition 
of our praying ? Does not such a view make 
prayer utterly useless so far as the Divine Being 
is concerned 1 He is not in the least degree, 
more favorably disposed to any of us whether 
we pray or not." 

Our author seems to suppose that our prayers 
are necessary to make God favorable to us and 
therefore find their chief use iu working changes 



UNIVERSALIS*! AS IT IS. 217 

in his dispositions, purposes and will!! It is 
quire obvious, then, that our author docs not 
think God so good and benevolent as he could 
wish him to be. He prays with the design of 
making him better, of improving his dispositions 
and purposes, and inclining him to be more 
gracious than he is i ! He wishes to instruct 
God as to his wants and the wants of his other 
creatures and to inform him what he [Mr. Hat- 
field] thinks, it would be advisable for the All- 
wise and All-gracious God to do li ! Very mod- 
est, certainly. 

The Universalis!, fortunately, has no such ob- 
jects to accomplish. "As far as the Divine Be- 
ing is concerned,'" he is already infinitely better 
than we can conceive, and knows all things. — ■ 
Were it possible to effect any change in him, it 
could only be for the worse. Could we tell him 
any thing which he does not already know, it 
would only prove him to be a finite being, and 
not God. But does this render prayer useless ? 
Does it even exclude the idea of blessings con- 
ferred on " the condition of our praying V* We 
have not so understood the subject. We believe 
there are many blessings of a spiritual nature 
which God bestows in answer to prayer, not, 
however, because he is unfriendly, or destitute 
of love towards us ; not because he is indisposed 
to bless us, but simply because we can not re- 
ceive and enjoy those blessings when in a cold^ 



218 REVIEW OF HATFIELD'S 

thankless, and prayerless state. We must feel 
those wants before they can be supplied, and we 
must seek after God and ask him for such bless- 
ings before they can be consistently conferred. 
The Scriptures represent God as waiting to be 
gracious and ready to forgive ; and our Savior 
declares him to be more disposed to give his spi- 
rit to those that ask him, than parents are to 
give good things to their children ; and he as- 
sures us that our heavenly Father knowcth what 
things we need, before we offer our prayers. Jf 
our author can believe Christ, the controversy is 
settled. We need not pray in order to inform 
God of something he did not know, nor for 
changing his dispositions and inclining him to be 
favorable to his creatures. Besides, it is worthy 
of remark that God has given us timely notice 
that he is not to be moved by our prayers to act 
contrary to his will and purposes. St. John 
says : " This is the confidence we have in him, 
that if v)c ask any thing according to his will, 
he heareth us. And if we know that he hear us, 
whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the 
petitions that we desired of him." See Calvin's 
comments in loco. We think God has never 
promised to answer any prayer that was con- 
trary to his will. Nay, the \ery idea of an ac- 
ceptable prayer implies that it must be conform- 
able to the purposes and good pleasure of God. 
" The true spirit of prayer," says Dr. Edwards, 



UmVERSALISM AS IT IS. 219 

** is no other than God's own spirit dwelling in 
the hearts of the saints. And as this spirit comes 
from God, so doth it naturally tend to God in 
holy breathings and pantings." But can the 
spirit of God prompt a prayer that is opposed to 
God? The apostle did not think so, fur he re- 
presents it as helping our infirmities and making 
intercession according to the will of God. 

The truth is, our author is resolved on con- 
demning every thing pertaining to Universalism, 
however widely held by the orthodox world, or 
however scriptural in itself it may be. Our views 
of prayer are not singular. No intelligent and 
candid Christian can well avoid their adoption. 
And it is certainly a marvel to hear a man who 
professes to believe that " God has foreordained 
whatsoever comes to pass," complain that 
Universalists render prayer nugatory, because 
thev acknowledge it is not designed to change 
the dispositions or affect the purposes of the 
Almighty ! " Our adoration cannot be less fer- 
vid," says Dr. Dewar, "because we know his 
perfections to be infinite and his government to 
be universal. Nor are we less earnest in our 
supplications, that we know that the things we 
ask are the very things which God has declared 
it his purpose to bestow." We shall close what 
we have to say on this subject, in the words of 
Dr. Blair, who in his sermon on "the unchang- 
ableness of the Divine nature," has replied to 



220 REVIEW OF HATFTELD r 5 

the same objection preferred by our learned 
author. 

" To what purpose, it may be urged, is homage 
addressed to a being whose purpose is unaltera- 
bly fixed, to whom our righteousness extendeth 
not, whom by no arguments we can persuade, and 
by no supplications we can mollify ? The objec- 
tion would have weight if our religious ad- 
dresses were designed to work any alteration 
on God, either by giving him information of what 
lie did not know, or by exciting affections which 
he did not possess, or by inducing him to change 
measures which lie had previously formed. 
But they are only crude and imperfect notions 
of religion which can suggest such ideas. The 
change which our devotions are designed to make 
is upon ourselves, not upon the Almighty. Their 
chief efficacy is derived from the good disposi- 
tions which they raise and cherish in the human 
soul Prayer is appointed to be the chan- 
nel for conveying ihe Divine grace to mankind, 
because the wisdom of Heaven saw it to be one 
of the most powerful means of improving the hu- 
man heart." The reader must indulge one 
quotation more, which we make from Buck's 
Theological Dictionary, and which is to the same 
purpose as that from Dr. Blair. After suggest- 
ing several considerations how prayer is neces- 
sary to the possession of certain blessings, the 
write*! adds : " Let it suffice, therefore, to say 



UNIVERSALIS]*! AS IT IS. 221 

that though we are certain that God can not be 
operated upon or moved as a fellow creature 
may, that though we can not inform him of any 
thing he does not know, nor add any thing to his 
essential and glorious perfections by any servi- 
ces of ours, yet we should remember that he has 
appointed this as a means to accomplish an end, 
that he has commanded us to engage in this im- 
portant duty, that he has promised his spirit to 
assist us in it, that the Bible abounds with nu- 
merous answers to prayer, and that the promise 
still is to all who pray, that answers shall be 
given." 

What more could Universalists say ? And 
must not such a doctrine from Buck and Blair, 
from Edwards and Calvin, from John and Paul, 
" be 'glad tidings' indeed, of 'great joy' to every 
blood-thirsty, polluted and abandoned wretch 
on earth ?" 

We now pass to the consideration of two 
long chapters, occupying together no less than 
28 pages of the work before us. In the first, our 
author lays down the doctrine as Universalist, 
that " Mortal life is not, in any sense, a 

STATE OF PROBATION FOR ANOTHER ;" and in the 

second, that " Faith has no connection with 

FUTURE HAPPINESS." 

It is rather unfortunate for our author's 
readers that he takes so little pains to express 
himself at once calmly and correctly, and to 

19 



322 REVIEW OF HATFIELD'S 

avoid the frequent use of ambiguous terms even 
in his very propositions. But it is useless to 
complain, and we may therefore better employ 
our time in inquiring in what light he designs 
to represent our faith, and what views he is 
pleased to hold up as the standard of truth by 
which to try those he opposes. The two chap- 
ters before us seem to embrace but one subject 
and may therefore be as conveniently consider- 
ed together. 

Our author has shown by several quotations 
from Universalist writers, that we reject the 
popular doctrine concerning a day of probation, 
which teaches that we are to be made immor- 
tally happy either for believing the truth, or 
performing certain good works in this present 
life. He has shown that according to Univer- 
salism, man's final destiny does not depend 
on himself, but on his Maker, and that God has 
not left a matter of this infinite importance to 
the decisions of such weak, misguided, and sin- 
ful creatures as we are. His quotations prove 
very clearly that we look upon a future state 
not as a reward for our poor works, but, as it 
is revealed in the Scriptures of truth, as the 
free gift of God. In opposition, however, to 
these views of the subject, our author maintains 
that " they, who have believed in a future state 
of being, have, with very few exceptions, in 
every age, and in every part part of the world, 



UNIVERSALIS*! AS IT IS. 223 

whether Jews, Pagans, Moslems or Christians, 
regarded human life as a state of probation for 
eternity. The common sense of the world, as 
well as their knowledge of the Bible, has taught 
them to expect that their happiness, or condi- 
tion hereafter, depends on their conduct here — 
that the character formed in this life gives char- 
acter to their eternal being. On this point the 
agreement is wonderful." . 

He goes on however to say that no truth is 
too sacred for those to deny " who are deter- 
mined that there shall not be the least proba- 
bility of punishment in a future state ;" that 
" they care but little how prevalent the doctrine 
may have been, even among the learned, the 
wise, the good, the holy, and the venerable ;" 
that " they are the people and wisdom must 
die with them," &c. &c. All very keen cer- 
tainly, but a little out of place with a Presby- 
terian, as will be seen in the sequel. 

It pains us greatly to be under the necessity 
of parting with so much good company, as our 
author describes. It is disagreeable to be ex- 
cluded from " the common sense of the world," 
and from all the knowledge which " Jews, Pa- 
gans, Moslems and Christians'* have derived 
from the Bible. But how can it be avoided ? 
Universalists do not believe that this life is a 
state of probation for eternity, or in other words, 
that " the happiness or condition of men here- 



224 review of hatfield's 

after, depends on their conduct here — and that 
the character formed in this life gives character 
to their eternal being. " They do not believe 
this, we say, and it would be worse than folly 
to conceal the fact, even though they be reck- 
oned among " the very few exceptions" who 
have opposed all " the common sense of the 
world," and the Scripture knoivledge alike of 
"Jews, Pagans, Moslems and Christians," into 
the bargain ! 

But let us first glance at " the very few ex- 
ceptions" mentioned by our author. Who are 
they ? We shall not stop to enumerate all, but 
among them we may notice particularly, " the 
goodly company" of Predestinarians, of whom 
our author may perhaps have heard, as they 
embrace the Presbyterian Church, of which he 
is a member and minister ! That this little 
class, whom Mr. Hatfield represents as unwor- 
thy of being named among " the learned, the 
wise, the good, the holy, and the venerable," 
has disbelieved, and does still disbelieve, what 
he says the common sense of the world and 
their knowledge of the Bible teaches them, any 
one may satisfy himself by reading any of their 
writings from Augustin down to the present 
day. Nay, they have set themselves very bold- 
ly against this " common sense" doctrine of our 
learned author, and opposed it at every point. 
In their confessions of faith, as well as in their 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 225 

piivate works, they have avowed their disbelief 
of this doctrine in the most explicit terms. We 
now have before us a little volume, commonly 
called "The Presbyterian Confession of Faith," 
from which, as our author may never have seen 
it, # we shall beg leave to quote a few para- 
graphs relating to the subject under consider- 
ation. In chap. 3 of the Confession, it is said 
— " By the decree of God, for the manifestation 
of his glory, some men and angels are predes- 
tinated unto everlasting life, and others fore- 
ordained to everlasting death. These men and 
angels, thus predestinated and foreordained are 
particularly and unchangeably designed; and 
their number is so certain and definite that it 
can not be either increased or diminished." — 
And as if to show beyond all cavil that this 
Church utterly rejects the idea that man's 
u happiness, or condition, hereafter, depends upon 
his conduct here," the Confession proceeds to 
say, that, " Those of mankind that are predes- 
tinated unto life, God, before the foundation of 
the ivorld was laid, according to his eternal and 
immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and 
good pleasure of his will, hath chosen in Christ, 

* It is worthy of notice that we had the pleasure, recently, 
of loaning this little work to an individual who has for some 
years been an active member of Mr. Hatfield's church, and 
who assured us that he had never read it ! We have reason 
to know that his respect for its doctrines, and for the fair 
dealing of his Pastor were not greatly increased by its pe- 
rusal. 

19* 



226 review of hatfield's 

unto everlasting life, out of his mere grace and 
love, without any foresight of faith or good works , 
or perseverance in either of them, or any other 
thing in the creature, as causes or conditions 
moving him thereto." In like manner the great 
Calvin lays it down as a " clear doctrine of 
Scripture," " that by an eternal and immutable 
counsel, God hath once for all, determined, both 
%ohom he would admit to salvation, and whom he 
would condemn to destruction. We affirm that 
this counsel, as far as concerns the elect, is 
founded on gratuitous mercy, totally irrespective 
of human merit ; but that to those whom he de- 
votes to condemnation, the gate of life is closed 
by a just and irreprehensible, but incomprehen- 
sible judgment." And such is the uniform doc- 
trine of the whole school, in all ages and coun- 
tries. To say that such men as Calvin, the ma- 
jority of the Council of Dort, the Westminster 
Assembly of Divines, the framers of the Say- 
brook Platform, and of the Presbyterian Con- 
fession of Faith, believed in the doctrine of our 
author, that on a man's conduct here depends 
his condition through eternity, is to insult " the 
common sense" of the world. What was de- 
termined in the purpose of God, once for all, 
from eternity, can not depend on man, in time. 
Nor can those, whom God, out of mere grace, 
totally irrespective of human merit, and without 
even a foresight of faith, or good works, elected 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 227 

to immortal felicity, be said, in any proper 
sense, to depend on their own conduct^ or their 
faith here, for their happiness hereafter. If their 
" future final fate" as Calvin calls it, is not 
made certain by God's eternal and immutable 
decree, then there is no truth in predestination. 

It is certainly a remarkable circumstance that 
our author can not assail Universalism with 
any prospect of success without either misrepre- 
senting its doctrines or denying his own ! In 
the case before us, it will be seen by all, that his 
objection against Universalism lies with infinite- 
ly greater force against the Calvinistic scheme. 
The former represents the Creator as a good 
Being, who from the beginning determined 
that the chief end of man should be " to glorify 
God and enjoy him for ever, ' and who will do 
all his pleasure ; the latter holds him up as one 
whom we should be unwilling properly to name, 
who created men for different destinies, so that 
eternal life is foreordained for some and eternal 
damnation for others. 

It would be amusing, if the conduct that pro- 
vokes our smile, were not so clear a proof of a 
very low tone of morality as rather to excite 
our pity,to see a professed Presbyterian, standing 
as a pastor of a Presbyterian Church, and sworn 
to preach the doctrines of its Confession, rising 
up and not only denying but denouncing in the 
most virulent terms one of its most prominent 



228 

articles of faith, and heaping scorn on the heads 
of those who have maintained it. But this is 
the new spirit now working in the Presbyterian 
Church — a spirit that sucks her life's blood 
while it kisses her ; and which is fostered by 
men who are eating her bread and filling their 
pockets out of her treasury, while they are en- 
gaged in the benevolent and filial work of 
rending her in pieces. Well may that poor 
Church exclaim, From my own sons, good Lord, 
deliver me ! 

Truly, there are some " transitionists" besides 
those found in the ranks of Universalism. We, 
therefore, beg our author to read what he has, 
in such a gentle spirit, written to abuse others, 
bearing in mind that it finds its true applica- 
tion alone in himself and his brethren. Surely 
" there is no end to their discoveries in theolo- 
gy. One antiquated tradition is no sooner 
' exploded' than another receives the same 
treatment. They care but little how prevalent 
the doctrine may have been, even among the 
learned, the wise, the good, the holy, and the 
venerable. The fathers were but babes com- 
pared with these. Giants they were in those 
days, but these have far outstripped them. 
They are the people and wisdom must die with 
them. How blessed are we who are permitted 
to walk in the light of such luminaries, 

1 Which kings and prophets waited for, 

But died without the sight.' " 



UNIVERSALIS]*! AS IT IS. 229 

Let our amiable author read this and if he 
has a conscience it will say to him as Nathan 
said to David, Thou art the man! 

But it is a matter of trifling importance to us 
who, or how many, have believed, that man's 
endless state is determined by himself, his 
works or faith, in this present life. Were it 
the doctrine of the whole world, we suspect 
that circumstance would not make it true nor 
entitle it to a rational adoption. We have seen, 
however, that all predestinarians reject the 
opinion with scorn, and they are the men with 
whom our author professes to sympathize, and 
on the fruits of whose labors he is now feeding. 
If he is ashamed of their doctrines honesty 
would seem to require that he should publicly 
renounce them, and place himself among those 
in whose faith he actually believes. If he is a 
Wesleyan outright, let him leave the Seventh 
Presbyterian Church, with its fine salary, and 
take up his lot among his humbler and less for- 
tunate brethren " on the circuit." Then will we 
listen patiently to all that he may say on the 
subject of probation, and no longer look upon 
his sneers and taunts as those of a man who 
moulds his faith to suit his own purposes. 

According to the popular doctrine of proba- 
tion, this present life is set apart by the Almighty 
for the purpose of fitting men for one or the 
other of two perfectly opposite states in the 



230 review of hatkield's 

future world, a state of inconceivable felicity or 
of inconcievable wretchedness. Notwithstand- 
ing the incorrect language employed by our 
author and others of that school, as if our future 
condition depends on our conduct here, it will 
be found upon a very slight examination that it 
is not the general character of a man's life 
which is to determine his endless well or ill-be- 
ing, but simply his mental and moral condition, 
or to use a cant phrase, " the state of his mind" 
at the moment of death. This decides every 
thing. It matters not a feather's weight 
how a man has lived; the only question that 
concerns eternity is how he died. He may 
have spent his whole life in a ceaseless round 
of the blackest vices and crimes, and ended his 
days upon a scaffold, and yet if, but one mo- 
ment before his existence here closed, he re- 
pented and believed, it is enough to give him a 
seat in glory for ever. So on the other hand, 
it matters not how industrious, temperate, hon- 
est, or benevolent, a man may have been all his 
life long, if he did not " get religion" before he 
died he will go to hell for eternity ! The child, 
too, that has sinned but once, and died impen- 
itent, shares the same equitable fate. Nay, 
according to most orthodox creeds, the child, 
that is guilty of being born one of Adam's pos- 
terity, and dies without having opened its eyes 
upon this wicked world, justly merits u ever- 



UNIVERSALIS!*! AS IT IS. 231 

lasting separation from the comfortable presence 
of God, and most grievous torments, in soul 
and body, without intermission, in hell-fire for 
ever! !" Whether this is the doctrine of our 
author we can not say, but we know that it 
makes a part of the Creed which the Presby- 
terian Church, of which Mr. Hatfield is a min- 
ister, publicly professes to believe. 

Surely he must be a heretic of a very malig- 
nant character, who does not believe in such a 
probation as this. It so completely, so triumph- 
antly justifies the ways of God to man ; it 
exhibits in such a clear and convincing light his 
infinite equity and benevolence, that none but 
a Universalist can possibly demur or murmur ! 

There is, it seems to us, an intrinsic absurd- 
ity in the popular doctrine of probation. That 
God has made an eternity of unspeakable hap- 
piness or misery dependent solely upon our 
own will, and that during the few years of this 
present life, utterly surpasses all rational belief. 
If we will but look around us and consider our 
present condition, we shall be convinced that 
our happiness or misery are but partially de- 
pendent upon ourselves even here. Many of 
the circumstances of our being are predisposed, 
and we have little more control over them than 
we have over the changes of the seasons, or the 
rising and setting of the stars. Now if this be 
true in relation to our present state, if we do 



233 REVIEW OF HATFIELD'S 

not frame our own fortunes, day by day, by our 
own conduct here, with what show of reason 
can it be pretended that this life, as a whole, 
is to determine our condition and happiness 
through eternity, and much more, that a single 
moment of our present existence is to give color- 
ing and character to the endless existence that 
follows? 

Our author asserts that this doctrine is in ac- 
cordance with " the common sense of the world. " 
What he means by u common sense" we know 
not, but we do know, and he also ought to 
know, that the doctrine in question is an out- 
rage upon all the dictates of sound reason, and 
unsupported even by a single analogy in the 
whole sphere of human knowledge. Experi- 
ence and observation show that a man's conduct 
and character, at one moment, exert an influ- 
ence over his conduct and character in subse- 
quent time. He is in some measure affected to 
day by what he was yesterday. But it must be 
remembered that the same moral power and 
freedom which co-operated in determining his 
character yesterday, is also in operation to-day. 
The creating and forming element within him 
is not dead nor has it ceased to act. Is it cer- 
tain, then, that his character of yesterday deter- 
mines his character to-day ] To suppose so is 
to deny man's moral freedom, and to reduce him 
to the unenviable state of a curious machine. 



UNIVERSALIS*! AS IT IS* 233 

And this is the tendency and result of the doc- 
trine in question. It acknowledges man to be 
free during this life, but liberty dies with his 
body, and his moral character through eternity 
is to be but what it was at the moment of his 
dissolution. We reject such a representation 
as equally pernicious and false ; as alike incon- 
sistent with the nature of man, and the attri- 
butes of God. 

But if the position so boldly assumed by our 
author as that of all " common sense," be thus 
utterly destitute of every rational ground, and 
without even the feeble support of analogy, 
what shall we say of his appeal to the teachings 
of the Bible ? Do the oracles of God declare 
that our immortal happiness or misery depends 
solely upon our conduct and character here, or 
rather upon the state of mind in which we die 1 
If so we would thank the advocates of this doc- 
trine to adduce the passages, by which it is 
proved. 

It can not have escaped the most cursory 
reader of the Scriptures, that man's salvation 
and immortality, are there ascribed exclusively 
to the grace of God. The Jews in the time of 
the apostles, seem to have adopted the idea 
now entertained by our author, that their future 
happiness depended upon their own works. 
Against this opinion St. Paul opposed himself 
with ail the force of his character, and all the 

20 



234 review of hatfield's 

authority of his apostleship. He taught that it 
is by grace we are saved, not by works, and he 
assigned many reasons for this great doctrine. 
It exalted the character of God ; it cut off all 
ground for human glorying, and left men to feel 
that they had nothing but what they had re- 
ceived. And so far did the apostle carry his 
doctrine, that he would allow nothing on the 
part of man as the procuring cause of the divine 
favor and salvation. He maintained that if it 
is by grace, then is it no more of works ; other- 
wise grace is no more grace ; but if on the 
other hand it is by works then is it no more of 
grace. There can not be two opposite grounds 
of salvation conspiring together to one end ; 
and hence he taught that he who relied on his 
woiks had fallen from grace. 

It must be acknowledged that there are few 
tendencies in human nature more strong than 
that against which the apostle insisted with 
such frequency and power. It is humbling to 
our pride to feel that w r e can do nothing toward 
gaining God's favor and securing an inheritance 
in glory ; and it is some satisfaction even to 
put forth our hand to steady the ark of God. 
Only allow us to do one meritorious act, one 
act that can give us some claim to heaven and its 
happiness, and it kindles our pride in a moment. 
We can then look down upon our fellow men 
with as much contempt as any Pharisee. But 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 235 

this is not the spirit of the gospel. " Where is 
boasting then 1 It is excluded. By what law 1 
Of works ] Nay ; but by the law of faith. " 

Our author we hope will be able to see that 
if M our happiness and condition, hereafter, de- 
pend/' as he affirms they do, " on our conduct 
here," if "the character formed in this life 
gives character to our eternal being," it com- 
pletely annihilates all idea of grace and utterly 
destroys the gospel of Christ. He seems half 
conscious of this himself, for the great principle 
which he, as a christian minister, advocates, is 
the self-same principle, according to his own 
showing, which has been maintained by " Jews, 
Pagans, and Moslems !" 

We have *not time nor space to make so full 
a presentation as we could wish of our views 
on the subject of faith and good works, as they 
stand connected with salvation. But we will 
attempt to render their outline intelligible. 

We begin then by saying that according to 
the whole Scripture representation, the gospel 
is a moral economy designed to act upon, and 
save sinners. Where did it originate ? There 
is but one Being from whom such a scheme of 
grace could come, and that is God. Did it 
spring from hatred or love ] It is not a system 
of ill-will but of mercy. We must then say, 
as the Scriptures plainly teach, that God so 



236 review of hatfield's 

loved the world, that he devised the plan of 
salvation presented in the gospel. 

Here then is one fact: and there is one im- 
portant inference deducible from it, viz : that 
God does not hate sinners, and of course 
there is nothing on his part opposed to the sin- 
ner's salvation. Nay more, he is most kindly 
disposed towards sinners, and it is his will that 
all men should be saved and come to the knowl- 
edge of the truth. But how can a sinner be 
saved without violating his own moral freedom 1 
The plan adopted was this. Jesus Christ, the 
Son of God, was to appear on earth, to reveal 
the Father, make known his character and pur- 
poses, and finally to die for the whole world, 
or in the words of St. Paul, to give himself a 
ransom for all,, by tasting death for every man ; 
and afterwards arise from the dead and ascend 
to his Father and our Father, to his God and 
our God. How this death of Christ was to be 
the means, or the chief among the means by 
which to work out a world's salvation, perhaps 
we do not fully understand ; but let it suffice, 
that it is the means chosen by God himself, for 
this grand purpose, and we can not, therefore, 
doubt that it is wisely chosen. 

When Christ ascended into heaven, there to 
appear before God for us, " having obtained 
eternal redemption, " we can not but think that 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 237 

the work of salvation was completed for ever. 
Christ was then " the Savior of the world," 
although as jet very few believed in him, and 
they but darkly and with little perception of his 
gospel. 

And now had come the time for his apostles 
to go out into all the world and preach his glad 
tidings to every creature. Now also it behoov- 
ed men every where to believe, repent and act 
as becomes the gospel. But what were they 
to believe ? We answer ; nothing but the truth, 
truth relating to God, their Father; to his Son 
their Savior; and to the eternal life, which being 
given to man universally, was still held, as it 
were, in trust, by their great head, the Captain 
of their salvation. They created nothing, they 
changed nothing, but their own souls, by be- 
lieving. Faith, then, was not necessary in 
order to make God love his own creatures, sin- 
ful, though they were ; nor was it necessary to 
induce him to send forth his Son to die for 
their salvation ; nor, again, was it necessary to 
secure to them an eternal life. All this was 
already done, once for all. It was the fruit of 
the first love wherewilh God loved us, and in 
the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ it 
was sealed and confirmed for ever. " By grace 
are ye saved, through faith, and that — (the whole 
process of salvation by grace through faith) — not 
of yourselves ; it is the gift of God, not of work*, 

20* 



238 review of hatfield's 

lest any man should boast." The believer 
enters into rest, and finds peace and joy in be- 
lieving ; the unbeliever is condemned, and is 
without the light, love or hope which the gos- 
pel contains. But as faith does not create its 
own objects, so neither are they annihilated by 
a want of faith or even a denial. Hence God 
is the universal Father, and Christ is the Savior 
of the world, whether men believe or disbelieve. 
So also it is a fact that "God hath given to us 
eternal life and this life is in his Son." Nor 
would it be less true, though there were not a 
man on earth who acknowledged it. 

The rule of good works follows that of faith ♦ 
Nothing can be more explicit than numerous 
passages of the New Testament, showing that 
human works make no part of the procuring 
cause of grace and salvation. It was u not for 
works of righteousness which we have done,**" 
or are to do, but of his own kindness and love, 
that God devised and executed the plan of 
human redemption. And so far from our good' 
works recommending us to the grace of God, 
they are rather to be traced directly, and, in 
their highest and most spiritual form, solely to 
that grace as their own cause. " We love God 
because he first loved us." He loved us while 
we were yet sinners, and loved us so truly, so 
deeply, that he even gave his Son to die for us. 
Welt^may we say with the apostle, "He that 



UNIVERSALIS*! AS IT IS. 239 

spared not his own Son but delivered him up 
for us all, how shall he not with him also freely 
give us all things?" Instead of regarding our 
works, therefore, as the cause of God's saving us 
we are to look upon ourselves as his " workman- 
ship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works 
which God before ordained that we should 
walk in them." So far from good works pre- 
ceding salvation they are themselves the fruit 
of it. Christ gave himself for us that he might 
redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto 
himself a peculiar people zealous of good 
works. 

But our author thinks the Universalist doc- 
trine on this subject exceedingly licentious. It 
may be so in his estimation, but it was not in 
Paul's, nor is it in ours. We believe with the 
great apostle, that " the grace of God, which 
bringeth salvation to all men, hath appeared, 
teaching us that denying ungodliness and 
worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteous- 
ly and godly in this present world." 

We would invite orthodox men of all par- 
ties to stop a moment and reflect on the conse- 
quences which must flow from the popular 
doctrine of probation. Let them reflect on the 
multitudes that die in every stage of infancy 
and childhood. These little beings are born 
totally depraved and hell-deserving sinners, and 
without a change of heart must perish everlast- 



240 

ingly. This change of heart we have no reason 
to believe they experience in this world, and 
" there is no change after death/' Do they all 
sink into endless torments 1 Modern orthodoxy 
teaches that all infants dying in infancy will be 
saved. But how ? when ? where ? The truth 
is, public sentiment will no longer tolerate the 
old fashioned orthodoxy which represented hell 
as being half peopled with infants, and hence 
universal infant salvation is preached in direct 
opposition to every doctrine of the popular 
creeds. But reflect, again, how many die in 
youth and in every variety of outward circum- 
stances, of opportunities for improvement, of 
temptations and trials. Must every one of 
these who have been tainted with sin, though ift 
be but for an hour, and have died impenitent* 
be consigned to endless misery, while many of 
the greatest sinners are preserved to old age 
and saved ] Look again among the idiotic, the 
semi-idiotic and insane, and tell us whether 
these unhappy beings are to drag out an eter- 
nity in hopeless torments. Let us cast our eye 
now over the whole world, and call to mind the 
fact that by the very circumstances of their be- 
ing, three quarters of its inhabitants are at this 
moment ignorant of Christ and his salvation, 
and that without a miracle they will die as 
ignorant as they have lived. If the doctrine in 
question be true, all these must without doubi 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 241 

be damned everlastingly ; for there is no change 
after death, and " the character formed here 
gives character to their eternal being." 

And this is the popular doctrine of the 19th 
century among enlightened christians, who call 
Jesus Christ " the Savior of the world," and 
represent God as the Father of mercies, a God 
of love ! I Will some of our orthodox friends 
inform us how much better Christianity is, ac- 
cording to these views, than Mohamedanism, or 
the religion of the Hindoos ? 

That this world is a state of probation, if 
this term be used in a proper sense, we for one 
most religiously believe. It is a season of trial 
wisely designed by our Creator for our moral 
as well as intellectual and physical exercise and 
improvement. It is a school adapted to our cir- 
cumstances, and replete with moral influences. 
That the moral culture which we here receive, 
and the progress we make in true spiritual 
knowledge and grace, will be lost when we 
pass into another state of being constitutes no 
part of our faith. That Nero and Paul were 
equally holy and happy on entering the spir- 
itual world we do not believe ; but we do be- 
lieve that in God's own time both will together 
bow in the name of Jesus and confess that he is 
Lord to the glory of God the Father. Both will 
have occasion to sing the song of redeeming 
grace, and joy in the God of their salvation. 



242 review of hatfield's 

Meantime it is a great truth that they who be- 
lieve the gospel enter into a present rest and 
have peace with God that passeth all under- 
standing, while on the other hand those who 
believe not are condemned already, and must 
so remain till they come to a knowledge of the 
truth and are saved — saved, not by works, but 
by the grace of God. If any one doubts or de- 
nies such a salvation let him remember that 
" where sin abounded grace did much more 
abound." 

God is alike the God of the present and the 
future world. His beneficent reign extends 
over all beings, through all times and through 
eternity; and while he rewards every man ac- 
cording to his works, he will not fail to glorify 
himself in the accomplishment of that grand 
purpose formed in the counsels of his own will, 
before the foundations of the earth were laid/ro 

GATHER ALL THINGS TOGETHER IN CHRIST. 

It will be seen from what has already passed, 
that we do not regard faith and good works 
with indifference, as our author would have his 
readers believe. We maintain the indispensa- 
ble necessity of knowing and believing the truth 
in order to the attainment of salvation and feli- 
city. Faith is the medium by which we are 
brought into the conscious possession of the 
blessings of God ; and good works are the out- 
ward signs, the visible tokens of faith, which 



UNIVERSALIS*! AS IT IS. 243 

from its very nature i3 inward. St. James 
teaches us that " faith, if it hath not works, is 
dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, thou 
hast faith, and 1 have works ; shew me thy faith 
without thy works, and I will shew thee my 
faith by my works." But neither faith nor good 
works were ever designed to make God better, 
nor more favorably disposed to his creatures. 

Our author can not leave this point without 
an attempt still farther to prejudice his readers 
against us by representing us as holding that 
" mere intellectual faith constitutes man a true 
christian." He condemns us also for maintain- 
ing that " simple belief in evidence is faith." On 
this subject we shall say but a few words. We 
think with the Presbyterian Pollock, that 

" Faith was bewildered much by men, who meant 

To make it clear; so simple in itself, 

A thought so rudimental and so plain, 

That none by comment could it plainer make. 

All faith was one; in object, not in kind, 

The difference lay — The faith that saved a soul, 

And that which in the common truth believed, 

In essence were the same." 

The various scholastic distinctions of faith are 
rapidly going out of fashion, and men of all 
sects define faith to be " a persuasion and assent 
of the mind, arising from testimony or evidence." 
But with St. James we distinguish faith into a 
living and a dead faith. By the latter we un 
derstand a cold, powerless, speculative belief, 
which our author probably calls " mere intel- 



244 REVIEW OF HATFIELD S 

lectual faith ;" by the former, we understand a 
conviction of the truth and divinity of the chris- 
tian religion accompanied by a conduct con- 
formed to this conviction ; and in direct opposi- 
tion to our author's misrepresentation, we 
maintain, that he only is a true christian who 
believes the christian religion in such a way as 
to act in accordance with it, and who allows his 
affections to be governed by his belief. And 
what makes the case worse for our author is the 
fact, that at p. 25 of his work, he quoted a pas- 
sage from Whittemore's Plain Guide where 
this distinction is clearly drawn and applied. 

We must pass by many observations in these 
chapters which would deserve a notice were it 
not that our readers have already had specimens 
enough of our author's christian temper, and of 
the truthful manner in which he habituates him- 
self to speak of Universalists and Universalism. 
11 An Infidel," he says, " could say no more than 
Mr. Ballou says;" and after quoting a passage 
from him, he adds, " from such evidence it 
would be an easy matter to show that devils are 
christians." 

Our author closes these chapters with some 
remarks designed to show that Universalists are 
quite insincere in their faith. " Why," says he, 
" is not their benevolence equal to their faith — 
why is it not universal ? Why do we never hear 
of Universalist Missionary Societies ?" &c &c. 



UNIVERSALIS!* AS IT IS. 245 

And after sneering at our " zeal," he says, 
" Let us have something more than words. A 
well organized and well conducted system of 
missions to the heathen, patronized by the whole 
sect, would do more to convince the world of 
their sincerity than the loudest professions.' 7 

We remember that our author in his preface 
gave us credit for quite as much zeal as he 
seemed to like, and we doubt not he would be 
heartily glad to see it turned in any direction 
rather than exercised at home. It would trou- 
ble him and his brethren much less, if it was 
employed in Hindostan or CafFraria. We shall 
have missionary societies, however, in due time, 
and shall support them as well and accomplish 
as much good by them as our predecessors can 
boast. At present we have as much labor as 
we can perform in our own country. At the 
same time, we are not solicitous to share the 
glory that redounds to our orthodox neighbors 
in their great missionary enterprises. And hav- 
ing now been called to this subject we can not 
withhold a reference to the sermon preached by 
the Rev. J. McElroy, the present year, before 
the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presby- 
terian Church. 

The preacher represented the cause of mis- 
sions as one in which God's " glory and the sal- 
vation of millions of our fellow men are deeply 

concerned." And what think you, the Presby- 

01 

iw L 



246 

terian Church is doing in such a momentous 
cause ] The Rev. Mr. McElroy shall answer. 
" And as to our contributions — what are they ] 
Tell it not in Gath— $60,000 from 160,000 com- 
municants, and perhaps a million of baptized 
members; an amount that many a ten among 
us could give without injury to a single earthly 
interest. My hearers, there is awful guilt in 
this matter. Our silver and our gold are the 
Lord's. Like every other talent they have been 
given to us to be improved for his glory. And 
yet here we are, take us as a church, contribut- 
ing to a cause in which his glory and the salvation 
of millions of our felloiv men are deeply concerned, 
at a rate of some thirty one cents a member !*' 
That is, our Presbyterian friends — communi- 
cants are actually paying thirty-one cents ^ 

each, annually, to glorify God and save about 
thirty millions of their fellow men — the number 
computed to die annually — from endless tor- 
ments ! ! Or if their baptized members are per- 
mitted to come in for their share of the honor 
in this great work, the sum will be seen upon 
calculation to amount to six cents federal money, 
which every member of the Presbyterian Church 
is yearly paying to glorify God and save thirty 
millions of souls from an endless hell ! ! ! This, 
of course, is appropriating to the honor of 
church members all the contributions made by 
the multitudes of wealthy and fashionable 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 247 

" world's people," indifferentists, nothingarians, 
hangeis-on, etc. etc., attached to the Presbyte- 
rian Church, and who are generally quite as lib- 
eral in their contributions as church members 
themselves. 

Truly these Missionary Societies ought to 
" convince the world" of something ; but 
whether it is the sincerity or hypocrisy of pop- 
ular religionists, we shall leave our readers to 
judge. Six cents a year to save thirty millions 
of human souls ! Why, there is scarcely a rag- 
ged boy in the street, who would not give that to 
feed a hungry dog ! We advise our Presbyte- 
rian friends to say no more about convincing the 
world of their sincerity by missionary enterprises. 

In harmony with the general tenor of his work 
our author now proceeds to show that Univer- 
salists affirm that " regeneration is merely a 

CHANGE OF PARTY." 

We have carefully read the quotations adduc- 
ed as proof of this proposition, and rise from the 
perusal of them with a conviction that Mr. Hat- 
field, when he made the statement above, could 
not but have known that it was unblushingly 
false. Universalists do not affirm that regenera- 
tion is merely a change of party. They have 
never so believed nor taught. We do not be- 
lieve it to be in Mr. Hatfield's power to produce 
a single passage, in all our writings, of any kind , 
which can be justly construed to sustain his rep- 



248 

reservation. Nay more, several of the quota- 
tions he has made give him the lie in his face. 
One writer whom he quotes, describes the new 
birth as " the enlivening and strengthening of 
our affections, the directing of them to their pro- 
per objects, and the extension of the same to 
all our brethren of the human family. It con- 
sists, therefore, in universal love and good will." 
This perhaps, is rather a definition of the fruits 
of regeneration than of regeneration itself, but 
it implies something very different from mere 
change of party, and strongly reminds one of the 
words of St. John — " We know that we have 
passed from death unto life, because we love the 
brethren. " Another of our writers represents 
the new birth as being " a change of principles, 
motives, habits,'' Another writer from whom 
our author made some garbled extracts, stated 
explicitly in the very article from which these 
extracts were taken, that " it is necessary that 
every one who is alienated from God, and a 
stranger to the pure gospel of tne Redeemer, 
should be born of that spirit which is truth and 
love, before he can be called a subject of Christ's 
kingdom ;" and, applying the Savior's doctrine 
to Nicodemus, he expressly said, that he must 
experience a " radical change" " a perfect revo- 
lution in his conduct, character, dispositions, 
and sentiments," in order to enter the kingdom 
of heaven. 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 249 

How pitiful is this attempt to belie the views 
of Universalists. And what a sorry proof does 
it afford of our author's own boasted change of 
heart! But he is disposed to be generous for 
once, and to acquit Universalists on the score of 
ignorance. " It is not," says he, " to be regard- 
ed as strange that these men should speak thus. 
They can not go beyond their own experience. 
They have no knowledge of any other change 

than what they have described And yet 

these upstarts in theology, merely because they 
themselves are unregenerate, in the ordinary 
sense, are determined all the world shall be as 
they are. Are we, are all God's people, then, 
deluded?" 

Disbelieving, as we do, the popular dogma of 
total depravity, it is obvious that our views of 
regeneration should differ from those commonly 
maintained. We hold to a moral or spiritual 
change ; our orthodox neighbors must, to be 
consistent, believe in a physical one. If their 
views are correct, our author may very well be 
merciful toward us, for our being as he says 
" unregenerate" is no fault of ours. We have 
no more to do about being born again, than we 
have in creating ourselves a new head or a new 
body. If he has been thus regenerated, let him 
be thankful for it, and endeavor to convince the 
world of the fact by speaking the truth and 
showing forth good works. 

21* 



Q5Q review of hatfield's 

As we said above, Universalists believe that 
regeneration is a moral or spiritual not a phys- 
ical change. It consists in receiving no new 
faculties, nor, indeed, in any constitutional 
change, as Prof. Finney has shown in his well- 
known sermon, but in a change of our moral 
character, our moral disposition. We ascribe it 
ultimately to God, but we believe it is effected 
in our hearts by the Holy Spirit through faith in 
the gospel. St. John affirms, " Whosoever be- 
lieveth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God ;" 
and again, " Whosoever shall confess that Je- 
sus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him and 
he in God." This faith is of course something 
more than mere intellectual faith, and it produ- 
ces more than t6 merely a change of party." 

In short Universalists maintain that when the 
gospel is sincerely believed, its faith purifies the 
heart ; the word of God is accompanied by the 
Spirit of Truth which affects a moral or spiritual 
change of heart. Man's views of God, of him- 
self, of his duties and prospects, are all changed. 
In the language of Scripture, " old things are 
passed away ; behold, all things have become 
new." New hopes, new desires, new objects, 
new affections,, and a new life, follow. He 
ceases to do evil and learns to do well. He 
strives in his life to act " as becometh the gos- 
pel of Christ," and by love, and faith unfeigned, 
to adorn the doctrine of God his Savior. Thus 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 251 

the christian loves God because he feels himself 
the object of the Divine love ; he loves his fel- 
low men, because they are all alike the offspring 
of God, and he seeks to keep the divine com- 
mandments because this is the only way ia 
which he can exhibit his love. It might be well 
for our author to inquire of his own heart what 
his state is in this respect. Let him look over 
the pages of " Universalisrri as it is" and ask 
himself whether that is the work of a man begot- 
ten of God, and imbued with the spirit of Christ ? 
That the views of Universalists on this subject 
are not altogether damnable, or, if they are so, 
that they have learned company, will be seen 
from the following quotation from Dr. Knapp's 
Theology, a work translated and published in 
the Andover Theological Seminary a few years 
ago. He says, " When the Israelites spoke of a 
person changing his religion, they used the phrase 
birth, new birth , etc. When a Gentile passed 
over to Judaism — became a proselyte — he 
was regarded by the Jews as netv born, a new 
man, a child just beginning to live." The same 
author tells us that the various words employed 
in the New Testament to denote regeneration, 
are used in three senses. " 1. To denote one's 
passing over externally from Judaism or heathen- 
ism to the christian society, and making an ex- 
ternal profession of the christian, in opposition 
to the Jewish, or a heathen religion, which a 



252 review of hatfield's 

christian renounces 2. To denote the 

internal or moral renewal of the heart, and of the 
whole disposition of man. This is the object of 
one's becoming a christian, to renounce the 
love of sin, and love what is good, and to prac- 
tice it from motives of love to God and love to 
Christ. This state is effected in christians by 
God or the Holy Spirit, through faith in Christ. 
.... 3. In many passages these two senses are 
combined." Now to all this Universalists most 
cordially subscribe : but if it is such an unmeaning 
statement of regeneration, as our author would 
represent ours to be, how happened it to pass the 
ordeal of Dr. Woods of Andover without even a 
note of censure or correction ? The truth is, 
and it must be spoken, our author either knew 
nothing of the opinions of Universalists on the 
subject, or else he has willingly misrepresented 
them. We might refer to other authorities for 
support of our views were it necessary. See 
Hammond's Annotations on John iii. 3 — 8. 
Lightfoot, ibid. etc. 

Our learned author next proceeds to edify his 
readers upon our views of u the resurrection 
state ;" but the principal object of this chapter 
is to show that according to Universalisrn, " all 

MANKIND WILL BE EQUAL IN THE RESURRECTION." 

Before entering upon the proof of this posi- 
tion, however, Mr. Hatfield stops to inquire 
M what it is that shall be raised. What kind of 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 253 

resurrection do the christian Scriptures reveal V f 
To this rather important question our author 
flippantly replies, " Plainly a resurrection of the 
body alone." This, it must be confessed, is as 
completely emptying the great doctrine of the 
resurrection of all spiritual significance as 
infidelity itself could desire. If as our au- 
thor believes the soul is naturally immor- 
tal, and will, nay must, live for ever whether 
Christianity be true or false, it might deserve his 
consideration, what advantage the resurrection 
of the body can confer upon this immortal part* 
Is it useful and necessary to its perfection, to 
its full susceptibility of happiness or misery f 
Then the soul, if not itself material, is certainly 
dependent upon matter for its perfection. And, 
moreover, the disembodied souls of those who 
have already departed from this life are in a 
state of imperfect suffering and enjoyment* 
What is that state ? 

It may amuse our author to glance at some of 
the opinions entertained in our Savior's time of 
a resurrection. We are told, Matt. xiv. 2, that 
when Herod heard of the fame of Jesus, he said 
to his servants, " This is John the Baptist ; he 
is risen from the dead ; and therefore mighty 
works do show forth themselves in him." That 
is, according to Mr. Hatfield's doctrine, Herod 
believed it was John's " body alone" that had 
risen ! Weli might he anticipate " mighty 



254 REVIEW OF HATFIELD'S 

works" from such a resurrection. Among the 
people, we observe a great variety of opinion 
who he was. While " it was said of some that 
John was risen from the dead, and of some that 
Elias had appeared/' others maintained that he 
was Jeremiah ; and others still affirmed that 
" one of the old prophets had risen again." 
Whether they thought he was " the body alone" 
of some of those servants of God, our author can 
no doubt very readily decide ; but that they re- 
garded him as a prophet who had experienced 
the resurrection is unquestionable. 

We would not take it upon ourselves to af- 
firm, but these instances and what Josephus 
says of the Pharisees, lead us to doubt whether 
the Jews of our Savior's time had any idea at 
all of a resurrection of the body. Josephus says 
explicitly, " They say, that all the souls are in- 
corruptible, but that the souls of good men only 
are removed into other bodies." If he is to be 
believed, the Jews, it is probable, or some of 
them at least, supposed that Jesus was the soul 
of some distinguished prophet which had risen 
again or reappeared in this new body. And this 
reappearance of the soul, they seem to have 
called the resurrection. The Sadducees are said 
to have denied a resurrection. "Was it of the body 
alone 1" or did they not rather, as Dr. Campbell 
shows, deny all future existence 1 It was on this 
supposition at least that our Savior refuted them. 



UNIVERSALIS*! AS IT IS. 255 

Of the resurrection of the body, which holds so 
conspicuous a place in our author's theology, 
our divine Master said not a word in all that 
memorable discourse. How is this to be account- 
ed for if the resurrection is plainly nothing but 
a " resurrection of the body alone ?" And yet 
our learned author will meet with the same in- 
superable difficulty in the teachings of the disci- 
ples as here occurs in the argument of the Mas- 
ter. In 1 Cor. xv., the apostle says nothing of 
the resurrection of the body, indeed nothing of 
any body whatever, till urged to it by the in- 
quiries of an opposer. " But some man will 
say, how are the dead, oi nekroi, (persons and not 
bodies,) How are the dead raised up ; and with 
what bodies do they come 1" Here as Locke 
has well remarked are obviously two questions. 
First, how does it happen that the dead are rais- 
ed in any way ; and second, if they are raised, 
with what bodies do they appear ? Now this 
last question might be considered as adscititious, 
and wholly apart from the first. And so was it 
regarded by the apostle. But how did he an- 
swer it 1 Did he affirm that the dead are raised 
with this identical body ? Nothing like it. 
44 Thou fool, that which thou sowest,thou sowest 
not that body that shall be." The plain mean- 
ing of the answer seems to be, that as in the 
case of grain sown in the field a new body is 
formed by some mysterious process and evolu- 



256 REVIEW OF HATFIELD 5 

tion through the death and corruption of the seed, 
a body in many respects quite unlike that which 
is sown, so here a spiritual body is by an equally 
mysterious process formed for the inhabitation 
of the immortalized man. Hence the apostle 
speaks in another passage of the present body 
as " our earthly house of this tabernacle," and 
says we know that if this is dissolved, " we have 
a building of God a house not made with hands, 
eternal, in the heavens ;" or as Dr. Bloomfield 
explains the words, we have a building at the 
hands of God, eternal, heavenly. 

Those who are of our author's way of think- 
ing will be surprised when they come to read 
the New Testament with a spirit of candor, to 
see how 7 little it contains respecting the resurrec- 
tion of this body. The inspired writers teach 
the blessed doctrine of the resurrection of the 
dead to a new, a higher and an immortal life. 
They teach also that the dead will be raised 
with spiritual or heavenly bodies. But these, 
it will be seen at once, are doctrines, to which 
our author's bears no resemblance. 

Let us now proceed to the exhibition which 
Mr. Hatfield gives of the Universalist doctrine 
of the resurrection. " Theirs," says he, " is a 
resurrection of the tvhole man. That which we 
call soul, they maintain dies with the body — re- 
turns to dust, for it is matter also. At death man 
is so far annihilated as to be deprived of all con- 



UMVKRSALISM AS IT IS. 257 

to dust, so that he would never exist again but 
for the resurrection, Universalists not only 
4 wish themselves all clay,' but actually profess 
to believe that they are such, and only such. 
They who died before the flood, and they who 
have since followed them, have perished. They 
are as much out of existence — Moses, David and 
Paul — as the brutes that perish." 

And this says the truth-loving Mr. Hatfield 
is Universalism ! Perhaps it is ; but like the 
horse which a school boy drew, it needs to be 
labeled in order to be known. Universalists, we 
are certain, would never recognize their faith in 
such a wicked caricature. But our very indus- 
trious and candid author has unluckily fallen 
into two small errors here. In the first place he 
has grossly misrepresented the views of Mr. Bal- 
four. And ip the second, has ascribed these 
views, thus misrepresented, to the whole denom- 
ination. This is just as honest and fair as it 
would be in us to misrepresent and caricature 
the doctrine of perfectionism as held in the 
Oberlin Institute, and then ascribe it to the 
whole Presbyterian Church. Mr. Balfour does 
not believe that the soul is matter, or that man 
is " all clay and only such ;" nor does he be- 
lieve that man is annihilated at death, or that 
the dead are as much out of existence as the 
beasts that perish. Our author's statement there- 
fore is essentially false. That he believes that 

22 



258 

the resurrection is a resurrection of man, and 
not of u the body alone" is true. He also main- 
tains the soul is unconscious till the resurrec- 
tion ; but our psychology had not suggested to 
us before that unconsciousness and annihilation 
were synonymous words. According to the 
author of " Universalism as it is," the girl, who 
faints in a revival meeting and is carried out 
unconscious, is annihilated ! This is a new fact 
in philosophy which deserves a place in some 
Society's Transactions. 

But our author thinks, " it would be difficult 
to show that Paul did not believe in the separate 
conscious existence of the soul when the body 
should be dissolving to dust." Very possibly ; 
but we think it would be still more difficult to 
prove that Paul had any belief in a conscious 
existence after death only through the resurrec- 
tion. Indeed he teaches expressly that if there 
be no resurrection of the dead then preaching is 
vain, faith is vain, and even those who have fallen 
asleep in Christ are perished. Nay, says he, if 
there be no resurrection of the dead, tfr1 ,et us eat 
and drink for to-morrow we die." Let our au- 
thor, if he feels valiant, gird himself to the task, 
and prove that the resurrection taught in the 
Scriptures is nothing but a resurrection of" the 
body alone," and that the man meanwhile is 
naturally immortal, and needs, and should expect, 
no resurrection. This will be accomplishing 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. "259 

something to the purpose. It will be setting 
Christianity on a level with heathenism, or if it 
lifts it an inch above it, it will be chiefly by super- 
adding to the doctrine of Plato, the insignificant 
doctrine of the resurrection of " the body alone." 
But our author is anxious to exhibit the supe- 
riority of his logical powers ; and he proceeds 
to assert that while Universalists thus " main- 
lain that man and beast perish alike at and after 
death," and that " man is as much annihilated 
as matter can be," they still believe " that this 
whole man, body and spirit (?) shall be raised 
again at the resurrection," but " what shall then 
be raised will vastly differ from what died," and 
" that the minds of what shall then be constitut- 
ed, will not be at all affected, as, at least, to 
their moral character, by what these particles of 
matter then thought, and felt, and did in another 
state." Now, says our author, " is it proper to 
call this a resurrection of the dead 3 a resurrec- 
tion of our identical selves? . . . How shall the 
beings who shall then be brought into existence 
know that they are the same who once lived on 
earth — when they have no common basis of 
moral responsibility, no common consciousness, 
and, for aught that appears no memory in com- 
mon ] Wherein will this transaction differ from 
a new creation V The conclusion to which our 
author comes is that if these things be so " we 
who die, actually perish, are annihilated; and 



260 review of hatfield's 

that instead of being all of us taken to heaven 
at the resurrection, other distinct existences, will 
then be created and enter heaven in our stead. 
In this case, the universal salvation, of which 
these writers boast, and in which they glory as 
alone taught by them is no salvation at all !" 
This it will be seen is a very fine spun argu- 
ment, all depending upon an flying far back. 
If the Universalists do believe that man is anni- 
hilated at death, then of course there is no res- 
urrection but, as our author says, a new creation ; 
and then also there is no salvation for us ; but 
we cease to exist and God may create whom he 
pleases in our stead ! All this is very plain " if 
these things be so." But these thinge are not so, 
and Mr. Hatfield uttered a falsehood when he 
affirmed they were. What then, becomes of 
his argument? Why like his Presbyterianism 
it is all vanished in thin air. ft was built on false- 
hood, and was therefore by nature unfitted for 
this rude world. But did it never occur to Mr. 
Hatfield to apply this acute and logical mode 
of reasoning, to his favorite doctrine of total de- 
pravity and regeneration \ Perhaps he would 
discover that a being totally depraved can not 
be regenerated. Omnipotence itself can not 
change sin into holiness. Hence if all men are 
totally depraved, there is no salvation at all for 
any; for total depravity can not be saved. 
Hence it is folly to talk of E. F. Hatfield, who 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 261 

was born in such depravity, being taken to hea- 
ven, and it is equal folly to speak of his being 
born again here ; because he is the identical be- 
ing now that he was before he professed to have 
been regenerated, which could not be the case 
" if these things are so/' The conclusion is 
that these totally depraved beings must be anni- 
hilated or go to hell for ever. To heaven they 
ean not go, for no unholy thing can enter there. 
And if God is pleased to make a new creation 
to people heaven, it will no more concern us 
than the new creation of a company of angels. 
" This system then teaches us as fully as ever 
the Sadducees taught it, that there will be 
no resurrection." So says Mr. Hatfield of 
Universalism, and so say we of his orthodoxy. 
" This consequence of their system," says he, 
*'* some of them perceive and are honest enough 
to avow." How 1 Do we understand our au- 
thor 1 Does Mr. Hatfield assert that some Univer- 
salists avow that according to our system " there 
will be no resurrection V* So it is written. Now 
permit us to say in all candor that this assertion 
is an unqualified falsehood. No Universalist 
ever made such an avowal. And yet with an 
effrontery that would shame any common liar, 
our author pretends to adduce the proof of his 
statement. He takes it from the Universalist Un- 
ion p. 234. And what does it prove ? That 
the writer of the article avows that there will be 

22* 



262 review of hatfield's 

no resurrection 1 Nothing like it. He calls in 
question the popular doctrine of the resurrection 
of " the matter composing the physical body at 
death/' and modestly expresses his opinion that 
" the heavenly body is entirely distinct from 
earthly matter, flesh and blood." And does Mr. 
Hatfield flatter himself that this will pass among 
intelligent readers for proof of his bold and de- 
famatory assertion. It is an insult to their com- 
mon sense, as well as to their sense of justice 
and truth. 

But there is one grievous charge more upon 
which our author insists. It is that according 
to Universal ism all mankind will be equal in the 
resurrection. The thought of this is too much 
for our pious and benevolent author to bear in 
patience, and he therefore exhorts his brethren 
to shun such "profane and vain babblings. " 
We remember certain men mentioned by our 
Savior who seemed to look upon the subject in 
the same light as our author. " They murmur- 
ed against the good man of the house saying, 
these last have wrought but one hour, and thou 
hast made them equal unto us who have borne 
the burden and heat of the day." The only 
comfort left for such murmurers is that granted 
to those of old. " Is it not lawful for me to do 
what I will with mine own ? Is thine eye evil 
because I am good V 

Whether all shall be strictly equal in the res- 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 263 

urrection, equal we mean in mental and moral 
developement, in holiness and the inward sus- 
ceptibility of happiness, may we think, be well 
doubted, and is so doubted by many Universal- 
ists. That all alike will be made alive in Christ, 
that all will be raised in incorruption, in glory, 
in power, and with spiritual bodies, and will be 
like the angels, and be the children of God being 
children of the resurrection, is what the New 
Testament expressly teaches, and what no well in- 
structed christian, it seems to us, can deny. 
But all this does not, to our comprehension, im- 
ply that a Paul or a John may not be farther 
advanced in knowledge, holiness and love, and 
hence also in consequent hnppiness than another 
man, or a child, even as " one star differeth 
from another star in glory." For ourselves, we 
can not but look upon the future state as one of 
progress, a state where our finite but immortal 
powers may be for ever and freely developing 
themselves and thus becoming the instruments 
of a higher and purer happiness. If all our fel- 
low beings shall be equal with us we trust we 
shall have such a modicum of grace as will ena- 
ble us rather to rejoice and joy in their felicity than 
to murmur at it. Mr. Hatfield we suppose 
would not take it kindly, for like some of old he 
seems to have an eye upon " the uppermost 
seats." There was always a wide difference be- 
tween the spirit of Pharisaism and of Christian- 



264 review of hatfield's 

ity. The striving of one is to lift itself above, 
and think itself better than other men ; that of 
the other is to lift other men, all men, up to its 
own level, and to find its happiness in their eleva- 
tion. One thinks itself the peculiar favorite of 
Heaven, the other is happy in believing that his 
goodness and mercy are over all. 

Our author's next labor is to exhibit the Uni- 
versalist denial of a day of judgment in the 

RESURRECTION-STATE. 

" It requires no small effort,'' says he, " to 
shake off that sense of accountability which is 
so universally and deeply impressed on the 
human mind." Is it not very odd that beings 
totally depraved should be impressed with such 
a sense as this ? Will Mr. Hatfield explain the 
apparent incongruity ? " But this sense of ac- 
countability with most men has to do chiefly 
with another world. They expect a strict ac- 
count will be required of them in another world 
for the deeds of this.' , But would it not be quite 
as much for the advantage of piety and virtue, 
if man's " sense of accountability" had some- 
thing more to do with this world, instead of 
being chiefly directed to another ? Perhaps it 
is natural to put off the evil day as far as possi- 
ble, and in this respect the popular religionists 
succeed to admiration. No one could reasona- 
bly desire a longer credit than they promise 
to the transgressor. 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 265 

This " strict account" which is to be requir- 
ed in another state for the deeds of this, is to be 
followed, Mr. Hatfield assures us, by " an im- 
partial retribution." Our readers must be 
aware, however, that " an impartial retribu- 
tion," in the orthodox sense of the term, may 
consign men differing very slightly in moral 
conduct and character to fates as wide apart 
as heaven and hell, as unlike as inconceiv- 
able happiness and inconceivable misery ! — 
Nay it may take the grey headed pirate and 
assassin to the paradise of God and doom the 
innocent victims of their malice and crimes to 
the endless torments of an infernal world. 

If any one feels curious to see a full devel- 
opement of this kind of impartiality let him 
read tract No. 32, of the American Tract So- 
ciety. This venerable body concedes that there 
is " a serious difficulty" in relation to a day of 
judgment. " If," say they, " the law of God is 
the rule of judgment, and if all sins are brought 
into judgment, then certainly every human be- 
ing must be condemned ; for all have sinned 
and come short of the glory of God. Accord- 
ing to this view none can be saved." Very 
well, gentlemen ; only let us have " an impar- 
partial retribution." But this, after all, is not 
precisely the thing, which our orthordox breth- 
ren desire ; for, to do them justice, we must 
acknowledge that they have as little idea of be- 



266 review of hatfield's 

ing themselves damned or punished for their 
sins, either here or hereafter, as any class of 
gentlemen you can meet with in the world. 
They are clamorous for justice heing done to 
every body — but themselves. They anticipate 
with great apparent satisfaction the impartial 
retributions of eternity, but only so far as they 
think themselves exempted from them. 

But how do tliey expect to escape, if, as they 
profess to believe, " the Judge of all the earth 
will do _ right i and his judgment will be most 
impartial?" Simply "through the riches of 
grace in Christ Jesus." They represent Christ 
as having volunteered to be their Surety, and 
as answering " to every accusation made against 
them." " Their numerous sins will be brought 
to view," " a long account will appear against 
them," but the whole will be freely forgiven, 
and they taken up to glory ! The remainder 
of the human family whose names were not 
written in the booh of life from the foundation of 
the world, will on the contrary be consigned to 
11 as much misery as in the nature of things is 
possible" — " to endless misery in fire with the 
devil and his angels." And this is what our 
author and the American Tract Society call an 
" impartial retribution." It would be amusing 
to hear these gentlemen describe a retribution 
that they would call partial. It could be noth- 
ing else we suspect than that mentioned by 



UNIVERSALIS*! AS IT IS. 267 

certain men of old, and which they represented 
as consisting -in rendering " to every man ac- 
cording to his works." This is a kind of par- 
tiality to which they show themselves by no 
means partial. 

But is there to be a day of general judgment 
in the future world ? — we mean such a day and 
such a judgment as are generally preached and 
believed in ] That it makes a very important 
part of orthodoxy can not be doubted ; and that 
in some respects it is indispensable, we shall not 
dispute. Rejecting, as that system boldly does, 
the Scripture doctrine of a divine and active gov- 
ernment in this world ; regarding this present 
state as one of bald probation, and not, as it is 
represented in the oracles of truth, as a state of 
rewards and punishments as well as of trial ; it 
is under the necessity of throwing its judgment 
forward into the future, and aggregating into 
one day, the moral economy that should and 
actually does, spread over the whole present 
life. Without this expedient the expositions 
given of the divine government by modern or- 
thodoxy, would not differ essentially from those 
of the ancient heathen philosophers. They re- 
presented God as retiring, as it were, after the 
work of creation, and leaving it, quite uncon- 
cerned as to the moral character or condition 
of man. Orthodoxy improves this view by as- 
cribing to the Deity so much interest in his in- 



268 review of Hatfield's 

telligent creatures as enables him to keep an 
account of* their conduct, and when the present 
world comes to an end to bring them to a judg- 
ment, and what they call " an impartial retri- 
bution." 

But this necessity of a general judgment is 
completely nullified by another part of the or- 
thodox system. It was formerly believed, very 
generally, and is now indeed, by most of the 
Lutheran, and many of the English churches, 
that at death men enter an intermediate state 
of being, neither completely happy nor miser- 
able. Thus they remain till the resurrection of 
the body and the final judgment, when they first 
enter upon the full measure of their rewards 
and punishments. But according to the pre- 
vailing orthodoxy of our country, all men are 
judged, individually, as they depart this life, 
and enter immediately into the full enjoyments 
of heaven or the torments of hell. What ne- 
cessity exists for a general judgment after this, 
we confess ourselves unable to see. For as 
men are judged, every one at death, by God 
himself, whose judgment must be infallible, it 
seems to follow that a general judgment could 
change nothing, effect nothing, either for the 
glory of God, or in the condition of his crea- 
tures. If such a judgment is not passed upon 
men at their death, it would be important to 
inquire upon what principle, then, they enter at 



tJNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 269 

once upon their reward or punishment. It is 
not common to execute a man before he is tried 
and found guilty. 

The truth is, the popular notions on this sub- 
ject are exceedingly confused, and inconsistent 
with each other. They are the product of dif- 
ferent schools and different ages, and can never 
be made to combine in one system. Our op- 
posers seem to forget, too, that God is a God 
who judgeth in the earth, among the nations, 
and among individual men, and that he judgeth 
here as truly as in heaven, and now as really as 
at any future time. In short, they seem to for- 
get that " all his ways are judgment." Time 
and eternity, this world and the world to come, 
belong to one system, and are embraced in one 
all-comprehending economy. The Scriptures 
mention many days of judgment, which have 
already passed, and which particularly concern- 
ed various nations, cities and individuals ; per- 
haps they also speak of similar days to come, 
but they do not reveal the doctrine of a day of 
general judgment such as is usually described- 
The popular phrases, general judgment, last or 
final judgment, etc. etc. never occur in the 
•Scriptures, and even the phrase, the day of judg- 
ment, is to be met wkh but once, we believe, in 
the Greek New Testament. In all other places 
it is a day of judgment, that is, a season of trial 
or punishment, come when or how it may* — 

23 



270 REVIEW OF hAtfieLd's 

Were oar author to read the Scriptures with a" 
little more attention, he would perhaps see that 
the several passages which he has arrayed in 
favor of the popular theory do not afford it any 
support. 

In calling in question the doctrine of a gen- 
eral judgment in the resurrection-state, Univer- 
salists do not call in question the truth of 
God's universal and righteous government. 
They maintain in accordance with the plain 
testimony of revelation, and in opposition to the 
false and pernicious views commonly entertain- 
ed, that the Judge of all the earth does and 
will for ever do right ; so that " he that doeth 
wrong shall receive for the wrong which he 
hath done, and there is no respect of persons. " 
He renders to every man according to his 
works. Whether men are perfectly recom- 
pensed in this present world is a question on 
which they are not agreed. Some maintain 
that they are ; others contend that they are 
not ; and others still do not care to decide a 
point that seems to them to belong exclusively 
to God, who alone can know perfectly what 
men's merits and demerits are, and what have 
been their rewards and punishments, and who 
is the sole judge when, where, how much, and by 
what means, his own divine purposes can be 
best attained and the good of his creatures best 
secured. For ourselves, we confess that while 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 271 

we most religiously believe that " God will 
bring every work into judgment, with every 
secret thing, whether it be good or whether it 
be evil ;" and while we feel a conviction which 
nothing can shake, that he will " do right/' 
and " render to every man according to his 
works," we are most cordially willing to leave 
the questions of time, and place, and manner, 
to Him in whose infinite wisdom, equity and 
goodness our whole soul confides. If it pleases 
him to reserve to another life any part of our 
punishment for the sins of this, we know it must 
be because it is wise and good so to do ; if he 
has ordained or shall ordain that there be one 
or a thousand general judgments subsequent to 
our present existence, we shall acquiesce in it 
for the same reason. It must be right and wise 
and good. At present we do not think that such 
a judgment has been revealed, and therefore we 
do not believe it ; and we would humbly sug- 
gest to the untiring advocates of this doctrine 
whether they would not more effectually sub- 
serve the great purposes of morality and godli- 
ness, by teaching that the Almighty will cer- 
tainly judge men and render to them according 
to their deeds, than to dwell so exclusively on a 
future general judgment, from whose terrors 
and punishments they may so easily escape. 

Our author opens his next chapter by re- 
marking that one of the greatest hindrances to 



272 review of hatfield's 

Universalism is the wonderful influence of the 
received version of the Bible. This translation 
he truly says was made by men who " most tho- 
roughly believed the orthodox creed concerning 
hell and damnation. " He represents their transla- 
tion as the result of vast learning and diligence, 
and tells us it has tended in every subsequent 
age to lead both old and young into the ortho- 
dox belief named above. To build up Univer- 
salism, therefore, it becomes indispensably ne- 
cessary " to throw down this strong foundation." 
Consequently in all our sermons, he says, we 
are found arraigning this translation. " It seems 
to be no small part of their work utterly to 
destroy all confidence in such a version." 

It will be sufficient to reply to this that so 
much of it as relates to Universalists is false. 
Those who know any thing of the subject know 
that while we do not regard the common ver- 
sion as infallible ; we still entertain so high a 
respect for it as to retain it in all our churches 
and all our families. This our author rather 
unwittingly concedes, for after giving a brief 
account of the version of the New Testament 
attempted some years ago by Mr. Kneeland, 
he says, " the work fell almost still-born from 
the press. . . . Even the ungrateful Universal- 
ists refused to substitute it for the book of their 
childhood." And this is Mr. Hatfield's proof, 
we suppose, that Universalists are laboring 



UNIVERSALIS*! AS IT IS. 273 

" utterly to destroy all confidence in this dread- 
ful translation," the common version ! 

That the common version was one of the best 
of the a^e in which it appeared, is almost uni- 
versally acknowledged, but at the same time it 
was prepared under no small disadvantages. 
The whole domain of theological science was 
then in its infancy; the translators were cramp- 
ed by the orders of king James ; and the spirit 
of their creed, which was made long before their 
translation, obviously exerted an unfavorable 
influence over their version. To give one in- 
stance. In Heb. vi. 4 — 6, the apostle says ac- 
cording to Prof. Stuart's translation, " For it is 
impossible that they who have been once en- 
lightened, etc., and have fallen away, should 
be again renewed to repentance. " The trans- 
lators of the common version, say " If they shall 
fall away," etc. Dr. Macknight says that the 
original word here being an aorist or past tense 
like the preceding ones, " ought likewise to 
have been translated in the past time have fal- 
len away. Nevertheless our translators, follow- 
ing Beza, who without any authority from 
ancient manuscripts, hath inserted in his ver- 
sion the word Si, If, have rendered this clause 
If they fall away; that this text might not 
appear to contradict the doctrine of the perse- 
verence of the saints." Surely gentlemen of 
such vast learning and diligence must have 

23* 



274 review of hatfield's 

known that they were imposing on their readers 
by this procedure, and yet a translation made by 
men of this cast of mind is in our author's view 
the " strong foundation" of christian faith ! 
Still, prejudiced and partial as these translators 
were, they could not so pervert the word of God 
as to shut out Universalism. While, therefore, 
we thank God for such a version as we have, 
we acknowledge with many of the best ortho- 
dox scholars of the last and present century, 
that there is much room for its improvement, 
and we gladly avail ourselves of such help as 
Bp. Lowth, Arch Bp. Newcome, Drs. Campbell, 
Macknight, Dodridge and Blaney, Gilbert 
Wakefield, Professor Stuart and others, have 
furnished for the more profitable reading, and 
the readier understanding of those parts of the 
sacred oracles, which they have translated. We 
say with Dr. Blaney that " nothing could be 
more beneficial to the cause of religion" than? 
" an improved English version of the Scrip- 
tures." 

After what our readers have seen of the can- 
dor and truthfulness of our learned author, they 
will feel no surprise to hear him declaring it as 
an " article of belief " among Universalists, that 

" THERE ARE NO MERELY SPIRITUAL BEINGS CALL- 
ED ANGELS, EITHER HOLY OR UNHOLY." He 

charges us plainly with disbelieving " the ex- 
istence of any intelligent beings but God and 



UNIVERSALIS*! AS IT IS. 275 

man," and of saying with " the ancient Saddu- 
cee that there is neither angel nor spirit." 

Whether Mr. Hatfield knew no better, or 
whether he deliberately uttered this unblush- 
ing falsehood, we shall leave those who have 
read his book, to decide. In either case, he 
can not screen himself from high culpability. 
That Universalists believe in holy spiritual be- 
ings, called angels, we had supposed as widely 
known as their preaching had been heard or 
their writings read. At least we had never 
heard or suspected that the existence of such 
intelligent beings was. doubted by any Univer- 
salist on earth, till Mr. Hatfield's " text book" 
appeared in the spring of the present year ! 
The faith of American Universalists in the ex- 
istence of " fallen angels," so called, is confess- 
ed to be very slender. Such beings are not 
mentioned at all in the Old Testament, nor in 
the New except by Peter and Jude, and their 
account of them is easily explained by the pop- 
ular tradition preserved in t{ie apochryphal book 
of Enoch ; and we may add, is capable of 
being explained satisfactorily in no other way. 

The whole system of demonology, exhibited 
incidentally in the New Testament, is capable 
of being proved to be the growth, so far as the 
Jews are concerned, of two or three centuries 
immediately preceding the time of Christ. Not 
a trace of it is to be found in the Old Testament. 



276 REVIEW OF HATFIELD'S 

Parts of it appear in the apochryphal writings 
composed subsequently to the close of the Old 
Testament canon, and it seems to have attained 
its full developement previous to the public 
ministry of our Savior. If it is a portion of 
revelation, then, who revealed it ? Not Moses 
or the prophets of the Old Testament, for they 
make no mention of it ; not Jesus or his apos- 
tles, for it already existed before they began to 
preach. We think it is no where required in 
the Scriptures that a man must believe in the 
personality of " the devil or fallen angels." 

But how, our readers will ask, does Mr. Hat- 
field prove that Universalists do not believe in 
lioly angels % We answer, he found a remark 
of Mr. Ballou — " the a.rch-messenger" — for our 
author can perpetrate as villainous puns as any 
sinner on earth — he found a remark of Mr. Bal- 
lou, that by angels, Heb. i. 6. are meant human 
messengers. Mr. Whittemore also had suggest- 
ed, that by the angels , Matt. xiii. 41, is meant 
the Roman armies. From these and a few sim- 
ilar passages our sapient author really inferred, 
or at least affected to infer, that Universalists 
believe in no other angels than human beings. 
It would be truly amusing to see a principle 
like this carried out universally. Dr. Adam 
Clarke calls Christ's angels, whom he was to 
send forth, Matt. xxiv. 31, " his messengers, the 
apostles and their successors — the christian min- 



UNIVERSALIS]*! AS IT IS. 277 

istry/' Dr. Doddridge calls these messengers 
the preachers of the gospel. Dr. Lightfoot calls 
them " ministers, christians." Dr. Whitby ap- 
proves this, and is wicked enough to add, " that 
God's prophets, messengers and ministers, both 
in the Old and New Testament are styled his 
angels" Would Mr. Hatfield charge these good 
orthodox divines with Sadduceeism % The truth 
is, and Mr. Hatfield probably knows it, we can 
hardly open a respectable commentator who 
does not in many passages interpret the word 
angel to mean a human messenger. But does 
this prove that they disbelieve the existence of 
angels, i. e. intelligent, celestial, and holy be- 
ings ] Stupidity itself would not draw such an 
inference. And yet this is the ground and the 
whole ground on which Universalists are con- 
demned by Mr. Hatfield. 

Were it necessary, we could exhibit from the 
very authors to whom Mr. Hatfield has referred, 
the most conclusive proofs that they did not en- 
tertain even a doubt of the existence of holy 
angels. They speak of them as beings of un- 
questionable existence. What then shall we 
think of our author's reading, and the " minute 
acquaintance" with Universalism of which he 
boasts ? Or what shall we think of his candor 
and honesty ? 

After such an instance of godliness as our 
author has given us in the preceding chapter, 



278 REVIEW OF HATFIELD'S 

we are fully prepared to hear him laud " the 
ordinances." There have in every age been 
men who tithed " mint and anise and cummin, 
but omitted the weightier matters of the law, 
judgment, mercy and fidelity." 

" Christian institutions," says Mr. Hatfield, 
" are seldom savory to an unregenerate heart. 
And such have Universalists, undoubtedly, in 
our sense of the word, inasmuch as they utterly 
deny the common doctrine of, and so can not 
have experienced, the New Birth." The pres- 
ent chapter treats upon the Sabbath, Baptism 
and the Lord's Supper. " To the heart of the 
true christian," says our author, "the SahbatJi 
day is the ' day of all the week the best.' It is 
the Lord's day — sacred to his service, never to 
be devoted in whole or in part to secular la- 
bors. The Christian remembers the Sabbath 

day to keep it holy But the Universalist 

has no such feelings He affirms that the 

Christian Sabbath is a mere human device." 

Now we object decidedly to this statement 
and particularly to the word device, which our 
author has here used for no good purpose. A 
" human device" generally implies something 
artful and evil, a stratagem designed to sub- 
serve some bad or merely selfish purpose. But 
Universalists never affirmed nor believed that 
the Lord's day possessed this character. They 
regard it as a day, set apart by christian usago 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 270 

from the time of our Lord's resurrection, as 
commemorative of that great event, and as the 
most suitable time for public religious worship. 
But that it is the Jewish Sabbath transferred 
from the last to the Jirst day of the week by 
divine command, and that it is to be kept holy 
in the same manner that that was required to be 
kept, Mr. Hatfield knows to be a proposition 
incapable of the slightest Scripture proof. The 
Jewish Sabbath was fixed on the last day of 
the week in commemoration of God's finishing 
his creative work and resting on the seventh 
day. The manner, too, of its observance was 
specifically described. Neither, therefore, could 
be changed without the same authority by whkh 
they were ordained. But Mr. Hatfield knows 
that the New Testament contains no expression 
of divine authority on the subject. There is no 
positive command to observe ihe Lord's day, 
nor any prescription with respect to the man- 
ner of keeping it. We have the example of the 
^apostles and primitive christians, and the pro- 
priety and usefulness of the thing itself to com- 
mand our respect and secure our observance. 
This is the ground maintained by Dr. Paley. 
.Buck, in his Theological Dictionary, says, " it 
must be confessed that there is no law in the 
JNew Testament concerning the first day. In 
Calmet's Dictionary, edited by Prof. Robinson, 
of the Presbyterian " Union Theological Sem- 



S80 REVIEW OF HATFIELD g 

inary" in this city, it is said that " the change 
of the day, however, is rather to be gathered 
from the practice of the christian church, than 
as clearly enjoined in the New Testament. . . . 
We have then good example and strong pro- 
priety in behalf of our observation of the Lord's 
day as a religious festival, though not as a Jew- 
ish Sabbath." Neander, the most distinguished 
ecclesiastical historian of any age or country, 
says that, " the celebration of Sunday was al- 
ways like that of every festival, a human insti- 
tution ; far was it from the apostles to ordain 
it as a divine command ; far was it from them 
and the first apostolic church to transfer the 
laws concerning the Sabbath to Sunday. But 
perhaps as early as the end of the second cen- 
tury a false transfer of this kind had been in- 
troduced," etc. 

We would cordially recommend to our au- 
thor to consult the history of the church on this 
subject, and especially to meditate upon the 
language of St. Paul, Rom. xiv. 6. which we 
will here give in the paraphrase of Dr. Dod- 
dridge — " One man, that is a Jewish convert, 
esteemeth one day above another ; he thinks 
their Sabbaths and new moons and yearly fasts 
and feasts have something inviolably sacred, 
and that the observance of them is matter of 
perpetual and universal obligation. Another 
educated among the Gentiles, or more tho- 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 281 

roughly instructed in the design and genius of 
Christianity, esteemeth every day alike, without 
any regard at all to the Jewish institution. Let 
every man freely enjoy his own sentiment. ,, 

But our author finds, under such laxity of 
principle, great laxity of practice ; and he has 
given two instances of very " grievous Sabbath 
breaking" by Universalist clergymen. One is 
convicted on his own confession, after the fact, 
of traveling from Verplank's Point to New 
York on Sunday, in order to be present at the 
religious service in the evening ! Another 
with premeditation and afore-thought, actually 
left New York on Sunday Evening in order to 
reach Rochester by Wednesday morning to 
attend a religious Convention there ! There 
was no minister to supply his place in New 
York and he preached on Sunday, it seems, 
that he might sin with impunity, in this hein- 
ous way, on Sunday evening. And what makes 
the case worse, this same Universalist now af- 
firms that he never had occasion to travel on 
Sunday without finding orthodox clergymen 
enough for company ! ! We hope our author 
will in the next edition (?) of " Universalism as 
it is/' take pains to exculpate the two disciples 
who traveled to Emmaus on the Lord's day, 
and also inform us how our Lord himself hap- 
pened to be in their company. They were all 
guilty, we fear, of violating the christian Sabbath. 

24 



282 REVIEW OF HATFIELD'S 

In regard to Baptism and the Lord's Supper, 
it is well known that Universalists differ in 
opinion among themselves. Baptism is prac- 
ticed to a considerable extent among us, though 
it is far from being universal. Many maintain 
that water baptism was not designed as an or- 
dinance of perpetual obligation. John the Bap- 
tist himself said, " I indeed baptise you with 
water unto repentance ; but he that cometh after 
me is mightier than I, etc., he shall baptise 
you with the Holy Ghost and fire." From this 
it appears that John's baptism and that of 
Christ's widely differ; and when we remember 
what St. Paul tells us, that " there is one Lord, 
one faith, one baptism," and consequently but 
one that is essential ; when we hear him, the 
great apostle to the Gentiles, solemnly affirm- 
ing, " I was not sent to baptise but to preach 
the gospel;" it must be conceded that water 
baptism is not indispensable to the christian. 
At present, however, neither the faith nor the 
practice of the Universalist denomination can 
be regarded as fixed on the subject, and liberty 
of conscience and private opinion is indulged 
without bigotry on the one side or contempt on 
the other. 

The Lord's Supper is with few exceptions 
regarded with more consideration, and the fre- 
quent observance of it is becoming more and 
more general. Notwithstanding this fact, which 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 283 

is obvious to every body in any degree acquaint- 
ed with Universalism, our author has the hardi- 
hood to say, " The day is not far distant when, 
notwithstanding the efforts of a few among them, 
the ordinances will be almost or quite unknown/ ' 
What the practice ten or twenty years hence, 
shall be among us with respect to water bap- 
tism, we will not attempt to foretell, but confi- 
dent are we that the establishment of churches 
wherever it is possible, and the due and frequent 
celebration of the Lord's Supper will then be 
universal. At present Sunday is generally 
kept as strictly by Universalists as by the mass 
of their christian neighbors, notwithstanding 
our author's uncandid remark that " in Univer- 
salist families generally, and especially among 
the more wealthy, it is the gayest of the seven." 
We now enter a new field. Having exhibit- 
ed " Universalism as it is" in theory, our author 
now proceeds to make an expose of its practical 
results — its "fruits." This chapter is introduced 
very sweetly with the touching lines of Watts, 
running thus : / 

" From thoughts so dreadful anH profane, 

Corrupt discourse proceeds; 
And in their impious hands are found 

Abominable deeds." 

From such a motto one would expect a chapter 
of crime and blood. The reader will however 
be somewhat disappointed. The method adopt- 
ed by our author is rather peculiar. Tired of 



284 REVIEW OF HATFIELD 3 

generalities and hard names, it seems, he here 
resolved to condemn Universalists out of their 
own mouths. Hence he has brought together ex- 
tracts from all the complaints that Universalists 
have ever made of their own coldness, indiffer- 
ence to the things of religion, short-comings, 
imperfections, errors, etc. etc. He has carefully 
picked up every ill-natured remark, which any 
one of us has ever made, respecting our practices 
and conduct, and the whole is arrayed in one 
fearful chapter. All the recommendations 
to greater purity, devotion and holy living are 
referred to in order to show that these things 
now have no existence among us. 

The conclusion which every candid mind 
would form from the whole mass of evidence 
presented in this chapter would be that, Univer- 
salists are by no means so good as they ought to 
be, or as they would be, if they acted consistently 
with their faith ; and that we ourselves are fully 
aivare of the fact, and industriously engaged in 
pointing out our errors, and exhorting one another 
to walk ivorthy of our vocation ! 

This it must be confessed, is not so horrible 
as was to have been expected in the outset. 
Our author, we believe, has mentioned no cases 
of murder among Universalist ministers, nor in- 
deed among the people ; and, so far as we re- 
member, not even one case of seduction and adul- 
tery, which are of so frequent occurrence among 



TJNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 285 

our orthordox neighbors ! Nor has he, as far 
as we have observed, stated any instances of 
intemperance among our clergy, such as our 
goodly city ha3 aforetime witnessed, when an 
eloquent and 01 thodox preacher could not ascend 
the pulpit stairs without assistance. It is wonder- 
ful, too, that no instances of horse-stealing and 
other genteel little vices, for which several of our 
orthodox neighbors are supported at the ex- 
pense of the State, have not been brought forth 
by our indefatigable author and arrayed with 
all the advantages which italics, small capitals, 
exclamation points, etc. etc. would afford. 

But Universalists it seems dare not often 
trust their faith in such experiments as these, 
and hence have turned their attention chiefly 
to small sinning, and particularly to sins of 
"omission." Their chief offences, as given by 
our author from their own confessions, consist 
in too little attention to experimental or practical 
piety ; too little zeal in the cause of religion and 
especially in supporting by personal attendance 
and pecuniary means the preaching of the gospel 
andj)ublic worship ; too little conformity of the 
heart and life to the divine precepts of the gospel ; 
too little love among the brethren; too little cul- 
tivation of the religious affections of our nature ; 
too little encouragement of Universalist boohs and 
periodicals, etc. etc. All this Mr. Hatfield has 
proved from Whittemore, Rogers, Balfour and 

24* 



286 REVIEW OF HATFIELD'S 

one Hosca BalloujrJ From D. Ackley he actually 
makes it appear that some men who profess to be 
Universalists, do, after all, instead of going to 
church, spend Sunday at the tavern, the grog 
shop, or at other places of wickedness. And 
from our departed Br. Fuller, he shows that in 
some places Demases, who were once our right- 
hand men, have forsaken us, having loved this 
present world ! 

Now what shall be said of these things ? 
" Alas, for the barren fig-tree !" says Mr. Hat- 
field. " Why cumbereth it the ground ]" But 
would our zealous defamer wish to see Presby- 
terianism or even Christianity itself judged in 
this way % Let us suppose that some malig- 
nant infidel were to prepare a chapter from 
the New Testament after the manner of Mr. 
Hatfield. Let him gather up every thing that 
could be made in any way to disparage the 
early christians or their cause ; the betrayal of 
Judas, the denial of Peter, the desertion of all 
the apostles ; let him collect all the passages 
which allude to the dulness, unbelief, miscon- 
ceptions, and errors of the early christians ; to 
their disputes and quarrels ; to their vices and 
crimes, such as fornication and uncleanness ; to 
their imtemperance even at the Lord's supper ; 
to their worldly mindedness, their forsaking 
Christianity and turning again to their former 
courses, like the dog to his vomit, or the sow 



UNI VERBALISM AS IT IS, 287 

that was washed to her wallowing in the mire; 
in short, let every thing of this kind be brought 
together and placed by the Infidel to please his 
own fancy ; let him cull his facts and set them 
not in the light in which they now stand, but in 
the peculiar light which malice would dictate ; 
let even exhortations to piety and godliness, to 
honesty and truth, be represented as proofs, 
upon confession, that such things did not exist 
in the apostolic churches : and then let him 
ask as our author does, " Are these the fruits of 
Christianity ? They are if we may believe those 
who ought to know best." What would honest 
and candid men think of such a proceeding ? 
Would they call it fair, and worthy of a man, 
or would they not rather regard it as a tissue of 
malice, as stupid as it was malicious 1 

But did it never occur to our sharp-sighted 
author that "men who live in glass houses 
should not throw stones V Is he not aware 
that even the Presbyterian Church, immaculate 
as it is, has a weak side quite vulnerable to this 
kind of attack ? We do not propose to go into 
the subject at large, but Mr. Hatfield can not 
have read their works and periodicals for ten 
years past, without being sensible that a very 
long chapter, and one by no means all sunshine, 
might be easily gathered from their pages and 
columns, to stand as an offset against the one 
before us in " Universalism as it is." We cast 



288 review of hatfield's 

not, however, forbear giving two or three speci- 
mens from works lying before us. 

In the General Assembly of 1832, the Rev. 
Dr. Codman, of Massachusetts, said to that 
grave body, " It is my deliberate opinion, that if 
you had, as we have, a common enemy to con- 
tend with, you would be at peace among your- 
selves." What a compliment to the christian 
and peaceable spirit of the Presbyterian Church ! 
It was on this principle that Herod and Pilate 
of old, " were made friends together." In the 
same Assembly Dr. McAuley said that " it was 
a fact that members of the Presbytery, [one in 
Philadelphia] could not pray together ; and what 
must our people say to that?" He accused the 
majority in Synod of an avowed determination 
to keep the minority under, to hold them in 
perpetual domination ; and that " not one of 
what they choose to call New Lights shall ever 
obtain a seat in General Assembly !" Dr. Skin- 
ner on the same floor maintained that the minor- 
ity had " not the rights of ministers." Dr. Mar- 
tin, of Chanceford, Pa., at the same time said, 
" Here, if permitted, he would tell an anecdote 
of an old elder of his own. On returning from 
the Presbytery, he exclaimed, ' How the times 
are changed. Twenty years ago when I used 
to go to Presbytery the ministers used to be 
grave, plain dressed men. But now they are 
just like a parcel of young lawyers !" Dr. Mc- 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 289 

Calla, refused at the same session to call the 
" New Lights" brethren. " I have a regard," 
said he, " for Mr. Barnes. . . I could love him, 
if I had evidence that he loved my Master." 
As it was, however, he could not love him nor 
would he even stay in a church where Mr. B. 
was in the pulpit ! ! This he acknowledged. 
" My conscience," said he, " would not allow 
me to stay." 

These are certainty very pretty sketches of 
the spirit of Presbyterianism ! They may be 
found, with much more of the same kind, in the 
report published in the New-York Evangelist at 
the time. These are pictures of the priests ; let 
us now look at the people. 

All have heard of Rev. Charles G. Finney, the 
great revival preacher. He has probably trav- 
eled as much, seen as many Presbyterians and 
made as many converts as any man in America. 
Let us hear him. " The religion of the great 
mass of the church," says he, " is not the relig- 
ion of love but of fear. They fear the Lord, but 
serve their own gods. They are dragged along 
in a dry performance of what they call duty, by 
their consciences. They have a dry, legal, earth- 
ly spirit ; and their pretended service is hypocrisy 

and utter wickedness . In most things the 

church of the present day is orthodox in theory, 
but vastly heretical in practice ." Sermons p. 258* 



290 review of hatfield's 

Can Mr. Hatfield find any thing that will equal 
this ? 

Hear now Dr. McCalla. Speaking of the dif- 
ficulties in the Presbyterian Church, he said — 
" We have deserved these judgments, for we 
have been a cold and worldly people, at ease in 
Zion, shrinking from the duty of maintaining 
Christ's laws ; so that God has in judgment per- 
mitted grievous tvolves, [New School men] to 
come in to scatter the flock." 

Listen, too, to Rev. Mr. McElroy, before the 
Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian 
Church, in 1841. After saying that the whole 
Presbyterian Church had raised the sum of six 
cents a member for this great cause, he says — 
" My hearers, there is awful guilt in this matter. 
. . . . O ! when will the professed friends of the 
Redeemer learn to honor him with their sub- 
stance !" So likewise, after saying how much 
they ought to pray for the success of the Mis- 
sionary enterprise, he says — " O ! I fear the spirit 
of prayer is slumbering in our Church : we are 
cold when we ought to be fervid ; — ice scarcely 
Itnoio what is meant by that mighty wrestling 
which has power with God and prevails. Breth- 
ren, we must awake! We must shake off this 
lethergy which oppresses and dishonors us, M etc. 

But enough. Our readers can easily see what 
the " fruits" of Presbyterianism are, " if we may 



UNIVERSALIS*! AS IT IS. 291 

believe those who ought to know best." Is it 
not a matter of wonder that with such facts be- 
fore his eyes, our author should have written the 
chapter under review ? 

Our author seems to find great pleasure in 
contemplating the prospects of Universalism in 
New- York, where he says, in his own amusing 
way, that " in fifteen years they have either lost 
ground, or gained but little, if any thing." This 
he facetiously concludes, is " poor encourage- 
ment, and augurs darkly for the future." But 
was not Universalism prostrated in New-York 
in the summer of 1840 2 So at least the New- 
York Evangelist declared, and so it has been 
represented through the whole country. How 
happens it, then, that in the spring of 1841, it 
should be in much the same condition as it was 
fifteen years ago ? But our author, as Lamb 
said of Coleridge, " is very funny" and speaks 
of things rather as he would have them, than as 
they are. If Universalism is " prostrated" here, 
or even at a perfect stand still, will Mr. Hatfield 
explain the necessity of his u Text Book," and 
of his other labors against our cause \ And will 
he also inform us why those venerable old Lec- 
tures of Dr. Joel Parker were brought out once 
more, and repeated again and again during the 
last winter and then republished \ Wise men 
do not generally war thus against " a dead lion ;'' 
and we suspect that our author is not so confi- 



292 review of hatfield's 

dent of the truth of his statement as he would geem. 
If he is, might he not have been better employed 
last winter in getting up a revival 1 So we think, 
and so we have reason to know his publisher 
thinks too ! It happens, however, that his 
statement is so notoriously incorrect that none 
but his most ignorant readers can give it a mo- 
ment's credence ; and they, like the simple, be- 
lieve every word, because " Gashmu saith it." 

The Orchard street society Mr. Hatfield thinks 
" may be regarded as fully established." The 
Bleecker street society and the fourth are repre- 
sented as " sickly infants," while the Dry Dock 
society is called u a Quixotic adventure." The 
Bleecker street society he says " is very few in 
number, burdened with an enormous debt, and 
unable to pay it — their house will probably have 
to be sold ;" while the fourth society, u left with- 
out a home, will find it, feeble as they are, a 
difficult matter to hang together." Our author 
is certainly no prophet ; for had he been, he 
would have foreseen that this same homeless so- 
ciety was destined in a few weeks after this 
paragraph was penned, to buy one of the Pres- 
byterian churches in our city, and go on pros- 
perously. As to the Bleecker street society, its 
" enormous debt," we will venture to say, is less 
than hangs over the majority of orthodox 
churches in this city. Its numbers are not few, 
it can pay its debts, and its house will not have 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 293 

to be sold ! So much for our author's know- 
ledge on the subject. 

But did it not occur to our zealous author, 
while he was thus misrepresenting the condition 
of Universalism here, that something might with 
far greater truth be said of Presbyterianism 1 
Let us ask the gentleman where the Bowery 
Church is ? The society is scattered to the four 
winds, and the house is in the possession of Uni- 
versalists ! Where is the Chatham street Chapel, 
that place of revivals ? Gone, and not a shred 
left. Where is the great Broadway Tabernacle, 
another theatre of revivals and New School 
Presbyterianism ? Sold under the hammer and 
now in the safe keeping of David Hale ; and 
the congregation is, no one can tell where. — 
Where is the Dey street Church, built for the 
Rev. Dr. Parker ? That is gone, too, and turned 
to a house of merchandise, or standing empty, 
and the goodly people all scattered and lost. 
Where is the Catherine street Church ? Seced- 
ed from the Presbyterians, and now standing 
with its society, " a very little thing," under the 
care of Mr. Hatfield's protege, the Rev. W.Whit- 
taker, ready to follow its predecessors. And 
where too is the Church at the corner of Vadi- 
son and Governeur streets, erected under our 
author's own auspices and sustained by his pow- 
erful influence 1 Was not that sold by the auc- 
tioneer during the last winter, and sold too for 

25 



294 REVIEW OF HATFIELD^ 

less than the mortgages upon it ? This church' 
it will be remembered was built about the same 
time as the Bleecker street Universalist Church, 
cost only three quarters as much, and had ali 
the sympathies of Mr. H. and his congregation 
in its favor, and yet they could not, or would not 
save it from the hammer ! Truly our author has 
much occasion to rejoice over the prostration of 
Universalism in New- York, and congratulate 
himself on the " rapid advances of orthodoxy /" 
The testimonies borne by Mr. Hatfield's spe- 
cial friends, M. H. Smith and W. Whittaker, to 
the downward tendencies of Universalism, are 
befitting to the witnesses, and are worthy of all 
the credit that their characters for truth can jus- 
tify. But we seriously object to the attempt of 
our author to make it appear that we in any way 
confirm their representations. He says, " In a 
conversation with Mr. Sawyer, of this city, I 
urged him to tell me what had been the moral 
results of his own preaching, and could obtain 
no satisfactory answer." Very probably ; but 
who expected that Mr. Hatfield would be satis- 
fied with any answer that could be given. Our 
preaching we hope is calculated to make Uni- 
versalists, whose constant endeavor it is " to do 
justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with their 
God ;" and we enjoy the full conviction that our 
labor has not been in vain in the Lord. A large 
congregation of sober, honest, benevolent and 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 295 

devout christians, are " the moral results" of our 
preaching. They constitute " our epistle" as St. 
Paul said, " known and read of alJ men." 

It is curious to observe how short sighted our 
author is and how much he apparently reckons 
upon the ignorance or prejudices of his readers. 
On p. 320 he says, " I can not remember to have 
seen in all my researches (I) in any one of their 
publications, one single exhortation from one of 
their number to a faithful discbarge of the duty 
of secret vocal prayer — or any attempt to incul- 
cate the duty of family prayer." Now our author 
can not be ignorant that this very serious charge 
lies against Christ and his apostles as well as 
against Universalists ! Where will he find an 
exhortation in the New Testament " to the faith- 
ful discharge of the duty of secret vocal prayer — 
or any attempt to inculcate the duty of family 
prayer ?" Mr. Hatfield knows, and his readers 
might know, that there is nothing of the kind in 
the christian Scriptures. That prayer is a duty 
or rather a very great privilege, every Univer- 
salist believes, but that we should pray vocally 
in secret is not prescribed by any divine author- 
ity, nor is family prayer enjoined in the New 
Testament. Whether family prayer and secret 
vocal prayer are necessary to the christian life, 
whether they are most useful and expedient are 
matters which we humbly conceive are left to 
the reason and conscience of every christian for 



296 REVIEW OF HATFIELD'S 

himself. To pray always, to pray without ceas- 
ing and in every thing to give thanks, is enjoined 
upon the disciple of Jesus Christ ; i, e. as we 
understand it, he is required to cultivate assid- 
uously the spirit of prayer and thanksgiving that 
he may always feel his utter dependence upon 
God and his obligations to gratitude and praise. 
Mr. Hatfield accuses us of " an attempt to 
ridicule family prayer, as altogether too Phari- 
saical for a liberal christian." This accusation 
is false, length and breadth. We have never 
attempted to ridicule family prayer, or any other 
kind of humble prayer. We did ask Mr. Rem- 
ington and we now ask Mr. Hatfield, if " those 
who assume much of the religion of the land, 
the pious, praying people, (we mean such as have 
piety and prayers to boast of) do not oppose and 
persecute Universalists, and for the same reasons 
that the Pharisees of old persecuted the disciples 
of Christ ?" We reverence prayer too much to 
ridicule it ; too much indeed, willingly to see it 
prostituted to the ungodly purposes, of vain and 
boasting hypocrites who make it their only claim 
to religion. There were those of old who loved 
to pray to be seen of men ; and who devoured 
widow's houses and for a pretence made long 
prayer. The fashion may have changed but 
the thing itself remains. There is little differ- 
ence we think, in standing at the corners of the 
streets and praying, or entering the sanctuary 



UNIVERSALIS]*! AS IT IS. 297 

of one's family or closet and then going forth to 
boast of it, and to abuse those who think it un- 
necessary in a matter of this nature to sound a 
trumpet either before or after the performance of 
a religious service ! God grant that there may 
be more humble, believing, christian prayer, and 
less noise and ostentation about it. And may 
the Christian world soon learn, that there are 
more certain tokens of true discipleship than 
that of much vocal praying ; even those of an 
upright and godly life, adorned by a meek and 
quiet spirit. 

We now pass to our author's last chapter* 
Heretofore he seems to have been as mild as a 
summer evening; but now he awakes in his 
strength and stirs up all his wrath. We can 
not do better, perhaps, than to make an extract. 
He opens his chapter thus : 

" The work is done- Modern Universalism in 
America has passed in review before us. It has been 
permitted to speak for itself. We have seen the 
tree and its fruits — the doctrines and their results. 
We have listened to its arrogant claims, and have 
suffered ourselves for the moment to be unchurched.* 

* This looks somewhat like a rhetorical flourish. Instead 
of allowing " the orthodox" to be unchurched, our author 
began by announcing that he was about to show " that Uni- 
versalism has little more of Christianity than the name, is a 
crafty system of covert infidelity, and does not deserve to 
be ranked as a Christian denomination !" And if he has 
not succeeded in showing this, he has asserted perpetually 
that it was still a fact. And now, after denouncing Univer- 
salists again and again as infidels, our author has the hardi- 
hood to talk of suffering himself and his brethren " for the 
moment to be unchurched ! .'" 



298 REVIEW OF HATFIELD'S 

The learning, and wisdom, and piety of all past time, 
have been made foolishness by its unbounded preten- 
sions. [Orthodoxy is remarkable for its modesty ; it 
makes no pretensions.] Truth appears to have fled 
the earth until it found a resting-place in the bosom 
of Mr. Ballou ! i Now truth perform thine office.'— 
Say to what belongs this scheme ? Whence came 
it ? Whose is it ?" etc. etc. " Other systems of er- 
ror have, for the most part, contented themselves with 
a single departure.* But this is a complete mass of 
heresies. It openly advocates, as constituent parts 
of itself, the very worst features of Pelagianism, An- 
tinomianism, Sadduceeism, Arianism, Monophysit- 
ism, Socinianism, and Materialism." [And why did 
not our author add to this list of hard names, Calvin- 
ism, Arminianism, Catholicism, and every other ism 
tinder heaven ?] " The followers of this creed main- 
tain fellowship with Deists, Libertines and Atheists, 
but withhold it from Episcopalians, Presbyterians, 

Baptists, and Methodists They make common 

cause with the infidel, by their constant efforts to un- 
settle the confidence of their hearers in the common 

translation of the Bible Of all Latitudinarians 

these are the most worthy of the name. No heretic 
can wish more liberty than is here allowed. As in 
the ancient Pantheon, every principal heresiarchmay 
here find a niche for himself, and receive the homage 
of his followers. The greatest amity pervades the 
brotherhood, whether Jove, or Venus, or Bacchus be 
the presiding deity. Nor must the lines be tighter 
drawn, lest some good free-thinking brother take of- 
fence and desert the holy cause ! Is this the Bride I" 
etc. etc. 



* Has our author forgotten what he said at p. 21 ? " One 
error has a strong- affinity for every other. They can nestle 
together in the same bosom. Easy is the downward path ; 
they who enter it wax worse and worse, deceiving and be- 
ing deceived." 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT ISa 299 

Now let no one say that this is not decent, 
charitable, christian. Let no one call it low- 
minded and malicious blackguardism. Let no 
one even harbor the suspicion that he who can 
thus speak, is not a meek, pure-hearted, amiable 
follower of Jesus, whose great aim is to honor 
God and promote peace and good will among 
men ! 

From this strain of fine christian sentiment, 
our author turns to inquire, " Who are these 
Universalist authors and preachers that they 
should lay claim to such superior wisdom ?" — 
He begins with James Relly, glances at John 
Murray y and passes on to Hosea BaMou, whom 
he represents as the sire of the race whose te- 
nets he has considered. The object of his ques- 
tions and remarks is to determine whether these 
men were the most learned , the most subtle log- 
icians, the most unfettered, and the most humble^ 
spiritual, devout and prayerful men, that the 
world ever knew. If they were, our author 
seems disposed to favor their views ; if they 
were not, if they did not know more than " all 
the wise men who flourished in the days of 
Watts, Guyse, Gill, Seeker, Potter, Doddridge, 
Newton, Wesley, Whitefield, Edwards, Jen- 
yns, Witherspoon, Hopkins, Styles, Watson 
and Paley, etc. etc., ,, then, he will have nothing 
to do with them. The question with him is not 
whether some of their leading views are scrip* 



300 

turally true, but whether they themselves were 
miracles of men, who might command belief on 
the simple ground of authority. 

This, it must be confessed, is the true ortho- 
dox method of procedure. A system of theol- 
ogy formed by Calvin, Arminius or Wesley, is 
of more value with certain men than that of the 
Bible. These were great men, learned men, 
devout and fraying men ; and therefore their 
opinions must be true. We reply that these 
great and pious men differed very widely among 
themselves. Hence it is impossible that they 
should all be right, while it is very probable that 
in some things they were all wrong. Truth we 
ought to receive as truth, come whence and 
how it may. But truth has a better foundation 
than that it has been believed by great and good 
men, better than the decisions of councils, or 
the consent of the church. Truth is an ordi- 
nance of G-od, and is to be believed on his au- 
thority, or else on the perceived nature and 
relations of things. It stands independent of 
our belief or disbelief; it is subject to no pri- 
vate interpretation, but is open in nature and 
revelation, for all men in all ages. Calvin and 
many others of the most learned and pious men 
in both the Catholic and Protestant Church be- 
lieved in a limited atonement I John Wesley, 
and our author, if his opinions are rightly un- 
derstood, agtee in rejecting this doctrine of a 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 301 

semi-barbarous age, and maintain with the Bi- 
ble, that Christ gave himself a ransom for all. 
And yet it can not be pretended that either 
Wesley or the author of " Universalism as it is" 
deserve the honor of learning or piety superior 
to that of an immense host of Calvinists. Their 
faith on this subject is true, not because they 
are greater or better men than their Calvinist 
brethren, but because it is grounded on God's 
own word. Formerly, infant damnation was a 
common doctrine of orthodoxy ; now it is avow- 
ed by scarcely an individual in the community ; 
and were it otherwise, a mere woman, with the 
affections of a woman's heart, would gain the 
mastery over the subtlest doctor of divinity in 
the land, who should attempt to maintain that 
old abomination. His great learning and piety 
would avail him little against the Bible and 
common sense. We offer these remarks merely 
to show that learning and piety can not make 
truth, and that they have not always even seen 
it. 

But we are anticipating. Our author seems 
to have labored under the benevolent desire of 
rendering the advocates of Universalism ridic- 
ulous in the eyes of his readers, of exhibiting 
them as the most unlearned, ignorant, wrong- 
headed and bad-hearted set of fellows in all 
Christendom ; and then of coming down with a 
mighty stroke of the argumentum ad verecun- 



302 REVIEW OF HATFIELD'S 

diam, and thus shaming the whole denomination 
out of its faith, or more probably, with the for- 
lorn hope of preventing his orthodox readers 
from thinking its doctrines worthy of the slight- 
est regard or attention ! This mighty weapon, 
though pretty freely used through the whole 
volume, was but kept in hand for a more fatal 
execution at the finale of our author's immortal 
work. The case stands thus. We, the ortho- 
dox, who believe and preach " the orthodox 
creed, concerning hell and damnation," are 
" the wise, the learned, the profound, the intel- 
ligent, the mighty ;" and we have so been in ev- 
ery age ; and what is moie, we are the most 
** sincere, humble, spiritual, devout and pray- 
erful men !" Nor is this all ; we are as numer- 
ous as the frogs of Egypt ! You, Universalists, 
on the other hand, are " few in number, and 
confessedly, with here and there an exception, 
illiterate in a shameful degree;" you have no 
learning ; you are " utterly unfitted for the work 
of expounding the Scriptures ;" you have not 
any knowledge, or at best a very imperfect one 
of u the Hebrew and Greek languages ;" you 
are " not distinguished for piety ;" you are 
" not sincere, humble, devout and prayerful 
christians ! !" 

Now " who are the deluded % Which is the 
safer scheme — the scheme that presents the 
strongest claims to your better judgment V* 



UNIVERSALIS^ AS IT IS. 303 

That this is a powerful argument we shall 
not denv. That it is the best one that our au- 
thor has used, or could have used, we shall 
willingly concede. It is singularly convenient, 
and is fortunately a suited to the humblest ca- 
pacity." It has the honor, too, of being vener- 
able by age, and of having been employed on 
very many important occasions. It assisted in 
mingling the hemlock for Socrates ; it cried out 
" Crucify him, Crucify him," against Jesus ; it 
opposed the pearly christians, and taught them 
the meaning of bonds and scourges ; it turned 
the prison bolts upon poor Galileo ; it was the 
great enemy of the Reformation ; it has man- 
fully resisted every improvement of a corrupt 
theology ; and is now making one desperate 
effort under the name of Puseyism or Oxford 
Divinity, to turn back the whole current of pub^ 
lie mind, and make the Fathers and the Coun- 
cils, and we know not but the Popes, the great 
interpreters of Nature and of God's word, for 
the present and for all future generations ; it is 
the best advocate for idolatry and witchcraft, 
and if its voice could be heard and heeded, it 
would bring back the darkness of paganism ; 
restore to its ancient sanctity the Pope's great 
toe ; render the Catholic Church infallible ; 
repair the dilapidated Inquisition, and make 
both our author and ourselves about a head 
shorter than we now are \ It would be delecta- 



304 REVIEW OF HATFIELD'S 

ble, but the fates seem to be against it. There 
are some souls on earth who love God and God's 
truth, better than they do even learned and pious 
men, and such men's speculations and opinions. 
They are hardy enough to think it safe to differ 
from whole councils and generations, where 
they differ from the truth ; and to regard their 
" interests for eternity" as well secured in an 
honest adherance to what they believe to be 
true, as in a truckling endeavor to go with "the 
multitude," and a hypocritical profession of 
what some great and good, but still fallible, 
men have believed before them. 

But what are the facts with respect to the 
ignorance of the advocates of Universalism ? 
If we consider the doctrine of the final salvation 
of all men through Christ Jesus, as constituting 
Universalism, it may be said to have been be- 
lieved and maintained by men whose talents, 
learning and piety would not suffer in compari- 
son with those of any other men of their age 
and country. Such were Clementof Alexandria, 
Origen, and the whole school of Universalists 
for the first four centuries. This was so much 
the case, that Doederlein observes, "quanto quis 
altius eruditione in antiqua christina eminuit, 
tanto magis spem finiendorum olim cruciatum 
aluit atque defendit." " The more distinguished 
by learning any one in christian antiquity was, so 
much the more did he foster and defend the hope of 



UNIVERSALIS!*! AS IT IS. 305 

a final termination oj torments" Scotus Erigena, 
who lived in the ninth century, represented by 
Hallam as one of the greatest geniuses and best 
scholars of the whole dark age, was accord- 
ing to Stapfer, a Universalist, and in this char- 
acter he seems to stand alone in all that period. 
Since the Reformation, with which Universal- 
ism was itself revived, and one of whose fore- 
runners was Scotus, it can not be pretended 
that it has been without advocates of high merit 
for all that our author claims as the peculiar 
possession of his orthodox brethren. In Ger- 
many, Siegvolck, Petersen, Eberhard, Gruner, 
Steinbart, Semler, J. R. G. Beyer, Doederlein, 
Jung Stilling, and the whole Rational School 
of the present day, and very many of the Evan- 
gelical party, Professors of Theology and Doc- 
tors of Divinity, can not be called ignorant or 
unlearned men. In England, it may be well 
doubted if such men as Jeremy "White, Dr. 
Henry More, Dr. Thomas Burnet, Dr. Cheyne, 
Chevalier Ramsay, Rev, William Law, Dr. 
Hartley, Sir Geo. Stonehouse, Bp. Newton, Dr. 
Priestley, and the Unitarians generally, Duncan 
Forbes, Dr. Samuel Parr, and a large catalogue 
of others should all be condemned as ignorant 
and unlearned. So in France and Switzerland, 
such names as M. Necker, Maria Huber, Pierre 
Cuppe,Chais de Source-sol, Bonnet, Pettitpierre, 
Lavater, and many of the Protestant clergy of 

26 



306 REVIEW OF HATFIELD'S 

the present day, are not deserving of such epi- 
thets as ignorant and unlearned. And in our 
own country, one might think that such men 
as Dr. Mahew, Dr. Chauncy, Dr. Huntington, 
Rev. Mr. Duchee, Rev. John Tyler — the last 
two,highly respectable ministers in the Episcopal 
Church — -Dr. Rush, and the greatest part of the 
Unitarian clergymen in the United States, should 
save a religious opinion from the odium of be- 
ing maintained by only ignorant and unlearned 
men. 

But our author wished to speak of what he 
calls modern Universalism, of which Hosea Bal- 
lou is the father. Relly and Murray are exam- 
ined as to their learning, and convicted of draw- 
ing " their system from the English translation 
alone," without " even the slightest knowledge 
of the Hebrew or Greek languages." Mr. Bal- 
lou is no better off; " nor have we any better 
reason/' says Mr. Hatfield, " to confide in Mr. 
Ballou's disciples. With a very few, if any ex- 
ceptions, they are devoid of all claims to our 
confidence as expounders of Scripture. Some 
there are, a very few, who have some acquaint- 
ance with the original languages of the Bible. 
But these, the most of them, acquired that know- 
ledge after they had embraced Universalism, 
and sought it for the very purpose of making 
the people have a greater regard for their pre- 
conceived opinions of truth." , , **. 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 307 

There is great candor here. When an or- 
thodox youth or clergyman studies the original 
Scriptures, it is ascribed to his thirst for know- 
ledge, or his pious solicitude to make his min- 
istry more useful to the world ; when a Uni- 
versalist does the same thing, our author chari- 
tably says, " it is for the very purpose of mak- 
ing the people have more regard for his precon- 
ceived opinions of truth !" Is this judging 
" righteous judgment ?" Is it even judging 
" according to appearances V* 

But is there not some danger that our author 
will " utterly destroy all confidence" in our 
common version ? A few pages back, Mr. Hat- 
field was eloquent in his abuse of Universalists 
for not reposing the most unquestioning confi- 
dence in the translation of King James. He 
represented this version as the " strong found- 
ation" of all faith in our country. Now, how- 
ever, it seems to be good for nothing, unless 
expounded by some one skillful in the Hebrew 
and Greek languages ! The truth appears to 
be, that it is a most admirable translation as 
long as it supports " the orthodox creed, con- 
cerning hell and damnation," but the moment 
it teaches Universalism, it needs " expound- 
ing," and expounding, too, ? by some man of 
learning ; that is, some one who believes just as 
our author does, for none other can be but igno- 
rant and unlearned ! ^_,^ 



308 review of Hatfield's 

That the Universalist clergy in the United 
States have not so much learning as would be 
honorable to themselves, and useful to the truth 
they advocate, so much as they ought to have, 
and will have, we shall neither deny nor ques- 
tion. We have no Doctors of Divinity, no Pro- 
fessors of Theology, and can make, we confess, 
but little pretensions to learning, in the techni- 
cal sense of the word. But there is one fact 
which still deserves notice, It is that no Uni- 
versalist minister, u shamefully illiterate'' as he 
may be, can renounce Universalism and em- 
brace orthodoxy, so called, without being at 
once received by our learned and pious opposers 
and engaged in their ministry ! Witness the 
case of William Whittaker. Our author admit- 
ted him into his pulpit to preach in two weeks 
after his renunciation. He urged with all his 
power that Mr. Whittaker should be licensed 
by the Presbytery, of which he himself is Stand- 
ing Clerk, and failed to gain his object, we have 
reason to believe, not so much because the can- 
didate was not acquainted with the Hebrew and 
Greek as because the Presbytery was skeptical 
of his honesty. That Mr. W. did not surpass 
his Universalist brethren generally in talents, 
or learning of any kind, is too well known to 
require proof, and yet Mr. Hatfield believed 
him to be qualified for the Presbyterian minis- 
try ! Look again at Matthew H. Smith. Of 



UNIVERSALIS*! AS IT IS. 309 

his skill in the Greek and Hebrew languages, 
or even in the English, we have never heard 
of any specimens ; and yet he is now a licensed 
preacher among the orthodox ! The Associa- 
tion, under the very shadow of Andover, offered 
him a license immediately on his second renun- 
ciation of Universalism in the spring of 1840, 
provided he would join one of its churches ! — 
And on his third or fourth renunciation he was 
actually licensed by no less a body than that 
paragon oUearning the New Haven West Associ^ 
ation, under whose favor he is now preaching, 
and with whose letters missive, he was admitted 
into our author's pulpit again and again not 
long since ! 

It seems, then, that shameful illiterateness in 
Universalist ministers, is no bar to their being 
licensed as ministers in the most learned denom- 
inations in our land ! But what is the boasted 
learning of our orthodox neighbors generally ? 
Are they all acquainted with the Hebrew and 
Greek languages ? And what claim have they 
" to our confidence as expounders of Scrip- 
ture ?*! 

It was no longer ago than 1827 that Prof. 
Stuart acknowledged that there were many re- 
ligious teachers who were " unacquainted, or 
but very slightly acquainted, with the original 
Scriptures. ,, And he asked, " What candid 
man will deny that there have been and aow 

27* 



310 REVIEW OF HATFIELD S 

are, many men of this class endowed with great 
powers of mind, men of exalted christian attain- 
ments, and of high worth in the church ? Men, 
too, who have far excelled, in almost every 
proper and useful qualification of a christian 
minister, multitudes of others that have spent 
years in the study of Greek and Hebrew." 

And although Professor Stuart has done much 
for the advancement of theological learning in 
this country, it is still a fact that the great mass 
of the orthodox clergy, can by no means be 
called learned men. How many of them can, 
and how many do, habitually read the Scrip- 
tures in the original tongues ? How many of 
them exhibit any tolerable knowledge of the 
best authors, in the various branches of theo- 
logical science and literature ? How many of 
them show any tokens of original thought, of 
broad and comprehensive views of things, or 
any considerable acquaintance with the progress 
of theological, moral, or physical science ? The 
following remark of George Combe, Esq. in his 
" Notes on the United States," will give a very 
correct idea of the kind of learning most com- 
mon in this country. Speaking of having heard 
Dr. Spring of our city preach " a highly ortho- 
dox sermon," he observes, " I have listened to 
orthodox sermons in Scotland for upwards of 
thirty-five years, and have long since ceased to 
hear a new idea from the pulpit. I find Cal- 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 311 

vinism precisely the same in America, as on the 
other side of the Atlantic ; so purely doctrinal, 
and so little practical ; so completely system- 
atic, and bearing so little reference to%ny par- 
ticular time, place, or circumstances, that every 
preacher of it seems to repeat all other preach- 
ers/' Vol. I. pp. 223, 224. Edinb. ed. 

We know not but we may be pardoned for 
introducing here the testimony of the well- 
known Dr. Ely, formerly of Philadelphia, in 
relation to the ability of his Presbyterian breth- 
ren in that city, a few years ago. He says, 
" Should we ask what peculiar pretensions have 
most of the present members of the Presbytery 
of Philadelphia to clear views, sound theological 
opinions, depth of research, and distinction as Di- 
vines ? most persons who know them, would 
answer with a broad laugh. None of them ex- 
cept Dr. Green, the highly distinguished Rev. 
Wm. McCalla, the Rev. Win. M. Eagles, the 
Rev. Robert Steel, and the Rev. Robert B. Bel- 
ville, are known fifty miles from Philadelphia, 
or will ever be named in the coming generation 
of the church. Were they subjected to a close 
scrutiny, and required to explain their own sys- 
tem of faith, they would be found not very dis- 
criminating, nor very consistent in their notions ; 
but just orthodox enough, in the undefined use 
of ancient set phrases, to pass muster! !" 

Of the great zeal of his orthodox brethren to 



312 REVIEW OF HATFIELD'3 

gain all such knowledge as would make them 
successful in the salvation of souls, our author 
himself shall bear testimony. In his preface to 
" Univef^alism as it is, 7 ' he says, " It is by no 
means uncommon for a Universalist preacher 
to accuse and convict one, whom he regards and 
treats as an opponent, of being but little ac- 
quainted with the peculiarities of the doctrine 
against which his labors have been directed. 
The author has seldom heard a sermon against 
Universalism, that was not based on assumptions, 
or directed against principles, which no well-in- 
formed Universalist at the f resent day admits //" 
The reason he assigns for such fatal blundering 
is, that " orthodox preachers" have generally 
contented themselves with a reading of Ed- 
wards vs. Chauncy, or at most with two or three 
old volumes in favor of the doctrine of universal 
salvation ! "Whether our author would have us 
regard this as a fair specimen of the vast learn- 
ing and profoundness of his brethren of which 
he boasts so much, we shall not determine, but 
if they will not take the trouble to make them- 
selves acquainted with a faith in their very midst, 
and against which they so often volunteer to 
preach and write, it is but reasonable to infer 
that their profundity on other subjects is rather 
shallow. Besides, it is a problem which has 
not yet been solved, how such ignoramuses as 
our author represents the Universalist clergy to 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 313 

be, should be so successful in their ministry, 
when surrounded and opposed by such hosts 
of " the learned, the profound, the intelligent, 
and the mighty ;" indeed by the very Anakim 
of the orthodox world ! 

But why do we dwell on this point? The 
truth is, we are what we are. We have no 
learning to boast of, and although our orthodox 
neighbors surpass us in an acquaintance with the 
Hebrew and Greek, it would still do them no 
harm to learn more, and prate less about what 
they have learned already. We have, it is hop- 
ed, a moderate share of common sense and rea- 
son, and are so fortunate as to be engaged in 
the maintainance and propagation of the best 
cause in the world — the cause of truth. Our op 
posers make a show of their Greek and Hebrew, 
but they are so unhappy as to be employed in 
the support of a rotten system of theology, 
which no amount of learning on earth can sus- 
tain, and no ingenuity of man is able success- 
fully to defend. Our strength and learning are 
increasing far more rapidly than that of our op- 
posers, and the distance between us is daily 
growing less. If our author and ourselves live 
to see twenty-five years more, he will not boast 
as he now does, of the superior learning engag- 
ed in the service of orthodoxy. Universalists 
will then stand on equal ground with their op- 
posers, and the battle, such as it is, will be the 



314 review of hatfield's 

contest between truth and error. And it may 
be worth our author's consideration, that if, with 
all our present disparity of means, and our nu- 
merous disadvantages, orthodoxy is still unable 
to maintain its ground against us, its prospects 
of victory are dark indeed for the day when we 
shall meet on equal terms. It will be a young 
lion pitted against a superannuated and purblind 
elephant. The truth is always young, error 
alone can grow old. The truth is mighty and will 
prevail. But even now it might be well for him 
to remember, that although " not many wise 
men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many 
noble are called," yet " God hath chosen the 
foolish things of the world to confound the wise ; 
and God hath chosen the weak things of the 
world to confound the things that are mighty ; 
and base things of the world, and things which 
are despised,hath God chosen,yea,and things that 
are not, to bring to nought things that are, that 
no flesh should glory in his presence. " 

A few remarks upon our author's concluding 
paragraph, and our work is done. Having, as 
he says, " written, labored and pleaded " that 
Universalists might be saved, our author closes 
with this pathetic appeal : — " Oh that you would 
but make a trial of our faith, our hope and our 
joy ! One at least of your number, who for 
years not only professed but preached your faith, 
and who has since made trial of that which he 



UNIVERSALISM AS IT IS. 315 

then despised and destroyed, has assured me 
again and again, that while a Universalist, he 
was a perfect stranger to that peace, which sub- 
sequently has filled his soul to overflowing. — 
Thousands can say the same. And so will it 
be with you, if you become a humble follower 
of our Lord and God — Jesus Christ. * Come 

THOU WITH US, AND WE WILL DO THEE GOOD.' " 

Our thanks are certainly due to our author for 
this touching proof of his interest in our spiritual 
welfare. This exhortation reminds us of his 
" flood of tears," shed " long time ago," and of 
the very many gentle things which he has said of 
us, and interspersed through the pages of his 
Text-Book. But while we are sensible of his 
great kindness, we are under the agreeable 
necessity of declining his affectionate solicita- 
tion. We have, we confess, no anxiety to share 
in the orthodox faith, and hope, and joy of the 
dogma of endless torments. Many of us have 
made trial of them, to our entire satisfaction ; 
and the rest of us are not curious to hang, merely 
to experience the sensations that hanging pro- 
duces. We are convinced beyond all doubt, 
as well from the nature of the case, as from 
the testimony of thousands of both friends and 
opposers, that conceal the unseriptural doctrine 
of endless torments as you will, it can be nothing 
less in the cup of christian faith, than rue and 
wormwood and gall. For if that dogma be true, 



316 review of hatfield's 

why should we not fear it for ourselves, and for 
our wives, our children, our parents and friends ? 
If it be true, we can not blind our understand- 
ing or our affections to the awful danger to 
which we and all men living are every moment 
exposed. Oh, an eternity in the flames and 
tortures of an orthodox hell ! The feeblest ap- 
prehension of such a fate for ourselves or any 
one we love, would, as Saurin confessed, diffuse 
a mortal poison into every period of life, "ren- 
dering society tiresome, nourishment insipid, flea- 
sure disgustful, and life itself a cruel bitter. 9 ' 
And are we asked to drink of such a poison ? 
Our answer is, that of such a bitter cup, in a 
universe created and governed by a God of 
love, we cannot, must not drink. It would be 
treason alike to our conscience and to our bless- 
ed Creator. And may God forgive the weak 
and misguided creature who, believing in the 
endless torments of millions and millions of his 
fellow men, still talks of his soul being filled with 
peace to overflowing ! Filled with peace ! What 
kind of peace is that 1 Does it Jill the christian 
with peace and joy to contemplate his own es- 
cape from endless flames, while he still believes 
that half of those whom God loves, and for whom 
Christ died, will go down to hell forever, and 
spend an eternity in blaspheming his God and 
Savior 1 Well might our author's friend con- 
fess that while a Universalist he was a stranger 



UNIVERSALIS]*! AS IT IS. 317 

to such a peace as that — a peace at best but 
selfish and which seems to us to come from the 
wisdom that is " earthly, sensual, devilish," and 
to have nothing in it of that spirit which loves 
one's neighbor as ones self. 

This then is the great good which orthodoxy- 
promises us ; the power of rejoicing with a 
fullness of joy, even though all men but our- 
selves are " damned everlastingly." We de- 
cline the proffered good, and thank God that our 
souls are linked with our race for weal and for 
wo. In the conviction that Jesus Christ is the 
Savior of the whole world, "the God of hope 
fills us with joy and peace in believing;" yea, 
we find a " peace that passeth all understand- 
ing." We have learned that where sin abounded 
grace did much more abound, and that where 
sin hath reigned unto death, even there shall 
grace reign through righteousness unto eternal 
life. We see in God a universal Father; in 
Christ a universal Savior ; in heaven a univer- 
sal home. We look forward with confidence 
to the final issue of God's vast plan of human 
redemption, and trust without one disquieting 
thought that Infinite Love will gain a victory, 
complete, universal, and for ever ! Let not others 
with their narrow faith talk of peace ; it is for 
the sincere Universalist alone to enjoy a peace 
as high, and broad, and full, and permanent, as 
his most transcendant hopes could grasp — as 

27 



318 review of hatfield's 

his loftiest wishes could desire. Thought can 
not reach a real good which his christian faith 
does not teach him to anticipate for himself 
and all mankind ; " for God is able," and as 
willing as he is able, " to do exceeding abun- 
dantly above all that we ask or think." 



NOTES 



(Note A.) 

In an admirable essay on the " Duties of a Theologian," 
by Professor Park, of Andover, published in the Oct. No. 
of the Bib. Repository for 1839, we find many very just re- 
marks on this subject. He is heterodox enough to think 
that " Theology has been obviously improving within the 
last two centuries." And he expresses, without much cir- 
cumlocution, the fact that the great masters of Calvinistic 
theology, Augustine, Calvin and Edwards were "hard-nerv- 
ed men." Augustine was "led to indulge in the hardening 
error of persecuting his adversaries by the aid of the civil 
law ;" and his eulogist can not help wishing that " he had 
consulted the, gentler and tenderer sensibilities, and given a 
more cheerful coloring to the messages of peace and love." 
Calvin, though " the apostle of liberty," is still acknowledg- 
ed to have had "the shell of freedom on his head ;" " his 
nicer sentiments and finer sensibilities were somewhat blunt- 
ed by the revolting scenes to which he was daily exposed. — 
He moved about among his opponents as an honest and strong 
jointed farmer moves with his flail over a threshing floor." 
But still Prof. Park thinks he was deficient in "the mildness 
of Him whose appropriate act it was to take little children 
in his arms and bless them." Next, and we hope last, came 
Edwards. " His failing was in too exclusive a regard to one 
portion of our sensibilities. He seemed to live apart from 
many of the innocent and craving sympathies of his race." 
" When he entered his sitting room his own children, it is 
said, were in the habit of rising up in token of their well 
merited reverence ; he ate from a silver bowl, while most of 
his parishioners were grateful for pewter." " When he 
preached, it was as if one had been let down from heaven to 
sound one of the seven trumpets, after which the seven thun- 
ders were to utter their voices." Again the eulogist of Ed- 
wards can not help wishing that "he had been somewhat 
more of a brother and somewhat less of a champion" — " a 



220 NOTES. 

little more like one on whose bosom we might lean our heads 
at supper." In short Prof. Park complains that their The- 
ology 4< has been hammered out by metaphysicians, and we 
all know," he adds, "what Burke says of these men — 'there 
is no heart so hard as that, of a thorough-bred metaphysi- 
cian' " — and he hopes that "the coming generation will 
study more delicacy of shading", more neatness of adjust- 
ment, and will cultivate a style more redolent of kindness 
and fellowship." 

We hope so too ; but how is this to be done with the stern, 
frigid, unfeeling dogmas of Calvinism? All such labor here 
will belike that of the Jpws upon their sepulchres ; they were 
but " white d sepulchres" after all. A guillotine is a guillo- 
tine still, though made of gold and ivory. The truth is, 
Calvinism never had any sympathy with what Coleridge 
calls '* the divine humanities of the gospel," and never can 
have. The spirit of " kindness and fellowship," can never 
animate its body. It can make " hard-nerved men," and 
hard-hearted men, but not kind, loving and sympathising; 
christians. 

(Note B.) 

We had intended to give here a number of interesting 
passages from several celebrated writers on this topic, but 
are prevented from doing so by want of room. It must be 
seen at once that the question, Does the Old Testament 
teach the doctrine of future rewards and punishments? must 
affect very seriously the whole controversy between the Uni- 
versalistand the advocate of endless misery. For if it should 
appear that such rewards and punishments made no part of 
the Mosaic system, it must be obvious that the doctrine of 
endless misery had no exi-tence before the days of the gos- 
pel, and of course that Christ could not have come to save 
men from such a fearful calamity. If the fact of such re- 
wards and punishments can be established, why will not 
some of our " learned, profound and mighty" opposers, en- 
gage in a task so all-important to their success ? Though 
without learning, we hope we may be able to understand 
them, and profit by their labors, in a field where litfl rt has 
hitherto grown but the rank weeds of dogmatism. We do 
not ask for assertions, we icant proofs. 



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